Chapter 59: Good Lessons
(This chapter is dedicated to Tobi, who keeps pestering me for more chapters.)
Magnus wasn't an idiot, most of the time.
He had enough sense to realize what was up with that funny feeling he got each time he saw a certain witch's pretty blue eyes, cascading silvery blonde hair and cherry red lips. His increasingly obvious softness for the French champion was also a very good indicator.
In his father's words, he had it bad.
The only solace was the insanely busy schedule a Newt level student who got herself in the Triwizard tournament had to deal with. He did not envy her, even if he was technically a Newt student himself; until his results came back, that is.
That meant he had plenty of time to come to terms with his new...situation, without seeing that wonderfully mischievous genius of a witch.
….Yeah, he had it real bad.
So Magnus did the one thing any emotionally unavailable gentleman would do, and drowned himself in more work than strictly healthy.
With no rigid curriculum he had to follow, delving into the depths of the arcane was very much within his ability. Old Magicks, complex spellwork and volatile runic matrixes filled the gaps left by his schoolwork.
If he so wished, he could shut himself somewhere and spend the whole day learning new spells from the school's library. The same way he could ask Kreacher to bring him some less than savory tomes from his family's collection to delve into to his heart's content.
He did all of this, and much more.
Spells as useless as the fur cleaning charm, or dark and obscure enough to make Dumbledore go full paranoid mastermind and try to love him out of existence.
Some of these, the Room of Requirements couldn't stomach. A marvel of enchantment it might be, but when faced with the most destructive magics known to wizardkind, it would crumble all the same.
For this special sort of spellwork, he had to venture outside the safety of the castle through the schoolground before reaching the one place in Hogwarts where no one would mind seeing some extensive curse damage, bar the Chamber of Secrets or Moody's classroom; The Forbidden Forest.
Why was there a forbidden and deadly place so close to a school full of children was anyone's guess. At this point risking the life of its students on a daily basis was an honest to god Hogwarts tradition, just ask Potter.
Magnus couldn't complain, it served his purposes well enough.
Every night he could get away with it, his nameless feathery form would soar high above and take him to a cove, a river or a remote cave unfrequented by centaurs, werewolves, overgrown spiders he truly wanted to burn out of this world. (They did cause damage in the battle of Hogwarts, once Aragog died.)
'Maybe Fleur will help.' He thought, but quickly banished the thought, being distracted wouldn't do.
He came down so quickly Andromeda would have a heart attack, had she seen him in action. McGonagall would just cheer him on, recklessness was a staple of quidditch nuts.
All the same, his control in the air went beyond anything the ground dwellers could imagine, much less achieve with their enchanted brooms. Everyone should try to become animagi, if only for the chance of flying without help.
Magnus felt the wards he had set wash over him, and quicky took control of the area. He made sure no soul, concealed by magic, was there to see him before shifting his form and entering his less gracious form.
Sirius used to suggest spending the rest of their lives in animal form, nowadays he wasn't sure whether he was joking or not. Skin shifting into animal form was one of the most wondrous, magical experiences one could experience, he wouldn't mind enjoying it longer.
'I doubt Fleur would enjoy discussing it with a giant eagle, though.' He chuckled, 'Wait...that would be two overgrown birds.'
He'll keep that second thought to himself, he knew she liked him well enough but he didn't want to dance to her fiery tune any time soon.
Tapping into his Occlumency, Magnus calmed himself.
He waved his wand, harnessing the myriad of possibilities with his magic before actualizing those he desired. Out of nothing but his own mana he formed in intent, which turned into an idea and given shape; bones, flesh, a measure of intellect to keep it going and his work was done.
In front of him were seven men with naturally wavy hair and colorful robes stood in front of him, shooting winning smiles and winks to each other.
They were nothing but realistic magic powered automatons, and while creating one of them was hard enough business to get him an O in transfiguration newts, Magnus didn't find much pride in his work.
Conjuration was hard, complicated and taxing when he was young and tender. Now, it felt more like opening a catalog and choosing which madness he shall bring to this world.
"Scatter." He said, and all the animunculi ran off as fast as they could, still smiling of course.
The first one of them was way too slow, getting caught by a silent bludgeoning curse in the head making it explode like a cabbage caught in a Hippo's maw.
"I'll have to work on the legs…" He said under his breath, frowning, even as he transfigured the dirt into three iron spikes before banishing them toward n°2.
Bullseye
One of the spikes punctured his liver, the other pierced his left lung and nailed him to a tree. The final one went through his head, gouging his right eye out on the way.
N°2 was still smiling through it all, winking (blinking?) at another poor conjuration running through the woods.
'Allright, that's fucking disturbing.' Magnus sweatdropped, but went on anyway.
By now, some of them had reached the end of the cove and finally understood it was a dead end. The only way to safely leave it was to fly off, which wasn't a skill he could give to mere animunculi...or could he?
Three was a magical number, so he did something special for the plum robed conjuration n°3.
Magnus waved his wand a couple times, to no apparent result, before speaking a very familiar spell.
"Serpensortia." He said, putting more magic than strictly necessary, yet nothing happened.
Until n°3 walked on a regular looking patch of dirt, which crumbled letting him fall down an eight feet deep hole filled with a dozen very excited snakes.
"My favorite color is lilac." were his final words, before a curious serpent shoved itself through his mouth.
Damn.
N°4 took an organ liquifier while he tried climbing up the steep rocks all around Magnus's lair. N°5 was smarter, he tried climbing up a three aways from his bloodthirsty maker, but ended up getting a first person experience of some rather interesting style of japanese literature when the branches became sentient.
"Yamete Kudasai Gilderoy-sensei."
N°6 was a fighter, or at least he wanted to be, with the way he fearlessly charged at his own creator in a Luciferian bout for freedom.
'Incendio Maxima.' Magnus stabbed his wand, and a stream of fire turned the angel into fried chicken.
"I love this spell." The boy said jovially, looking for the final conjuration. "This one...not so much."
N°7 was digging his own grave, literally, why the limited intelligence he could give to his animations decided that digging a hole was the best way to survive was unknown to the amber eyed wizard, but it was all the same really.
"Fiendfyre." He waved his wand like a lasso, a single thread of dark red fire following his move until he stabbed it at the now frantic human mole rat.
In an instant, the tongue like fiery blade grew and grew, until it became so large the poor thing was completely devoured; wavy hair and all.
Magnus's magic was struggling to keep the fiery subdued, while it trashed and devoured everything on sight; dirt, grass, stone...everything burned when Fiendfyre passed. He could feel his control slipping, his own mana further fueling the magical aspect of destruction given form.
With great strain, he managed to condense it into an increasingly small ball, even when he finally banished them, the flames never submitted to his control.
He still wasn't ready.
Magnus felt dizzy, he sat down to take a breath before deciding he'd rather lay for a bit. His face was red, and his breath ragged and irregular.
Before him was yet another field of destruction, the kind of which only the darkest spells could achieve. This time, the damage was only as large as a bus, his earlier attempts led to holes the size of a house in the forbidden forest...fixing it was a major pain in the arse.
'What the heck?' He opened his eyes, looking around for a sliver of flame he'd somehow missed, yet found nothing.
'It doesn't make any sense.' He thought, focusing on the magic around him until he found the cause of his distress. 'I felt it, that kind of rage...it can only be fiendfyre.'
In a mere second, he perceived another spike of destructive energy, this time a good distance away from him.
'Someone else is using Fiendfyre here.' His face blanched at the thought.
He schooled his features, he needed to be calm for this. Almost on habit, he reached into his Occlumency to isolate his emotions and focus on the task at hand.
Someone was using a class 5 spell, potentially related to Fiendfyre within the forbidden forest...this meant troubles, big troubles.
He had to investigate, leaving an unknown variable so close was simply inadmissible. He'd already made sure there was no intruder in the castle, the marauder's map would've been enough to snuff out any polyjuiced or otherwise concealed foe.
Crouch Jr was hiding here? Or some other agent of Voldemort? It could also be an unrelated dark wizard...no, it didn't make any sense.
It was more likely that a fellow student was trying to learn something he shouldn't, not that he had any right to judge, obviously.
'Better safe than sorry.' He applied an invisibility charm to himself, adding a smell and sound removing spells on an afterthought.
In a second, gone was Magnus Black and a speeding Harpy Eagle flew through the woods to find the wrongdoer in the forest...to find the other wrongdoer in the forest.
It didn't take long for him to close the distance, few things did when you flew at fifty miles per hour, the only problem was finding the source of the magic he'd felt.
This form had much sharper senses, but it wasn't nearly as good when it came to tracing the flow of magic in the area. He did not dare shapeshift in enemy territory, so he did it the good old way by flying around the area until he found something interesting.
The first thing he noticed was the heat, the second thing he noticed was the huge fireball coming his way.
He dived down in panic, flying through the woods so he could make sense of the situation. He heard a mighty roar, and voices casting full powered stunners.
But more importantly, he felt it.
Three huge masses of magic, the likes of which he never saw before. Each of them was like a motor of magical power, grumbling like an enraged volcano, radiating mana that spoke of nothing but might, destruction and pure power.
Dragons.
Fire breathing, magic resisting, boulder crushing, honest to Smaug dragons.
He felt the urge to laugh out loud, it was no wonder he thought someone was spamming Fiendfyre; there were three beings of fire made flesh raging about.
He took off, eager to have some rest after a long, eventful night...only then he realized.
'Dragons.' His heart went cold. 'Fleur is going to face one of them.'
There was nothing quite like the risk of losing someone you care about to a giant magical lizard to make you sort out your feelings and do what you must.
That's the lesson Magnus learned that day, and he changed his path from the safety of the Ravenclaws tower to the carriage where his Fleur resided.
This, and that using Gilderoy Lockhart for target practice is extremely fun.
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Hey guy! It!s Uncle Sheo!
Here's another little chapter for ya, just like you like' em; with magic, fluff, some foreshadowing, some more fluff, and Gilderoy Lockhart getting all the misery he deserves.
Concerning the cheese society, I have made some major breakthroughs and if everything goes smoothly, it should be available within a week with anything from five to ten free new chapters (It will always be 5 to 10 chapters ahead, for free of course.)
Peace and Cheese!
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