บท 83: Helping Daphne

Dear Aunt Andromeda,

It has recently come to my attention that you were quite an accomplished potions mistress in your time. Before you were cast out of your family tree for loving and marrying a muggleborn.

I do not know why you never followed your passion and choose to became a potions mistress after the demise and imprisonment of your family members. I could only guess that you must have had your own personal reasons.

Be that as it may, I've recently taken a girl under my wing who seemed to be very good with Potions herself.

I've seen her skills and believe that she has a lot of potential to be a great potion's mistress. But we both know that her skills will only stagnate under the teaching of Severus Snape.

So I want you to teach her the subject instead.

Of course, I do not expect you to work for free. So here I've sent 3000 galleons as teaching fee for the next 6 months. Along with the money, I'm also sending you additional books regarding potion that might interest you along with a beginner book in the subject of Alchemy in case you want to pursue something new.

If you consider the fee too little then send a message with Bitty, my house elf and we could negotiate the price at a further date.

You don't need to worry about the absence of a potions' lab as I'll provide it for you along with the girl you'll teaching in the future.

You can also use that potions' lab in your spare time if you want.

I hope you accept this request from me.

It might give you something to do with your spare time and who knows, maybe you might even get back your passion for Potions once again.

Your loving nephew,

Harry James Potter

——————

* He stepped inside the Room of Requirements and practiced along with the dummies. Having three Time turners was very helpful and gave him 39 hours in a day. He always made sure to spend 1-2 hours in this Room solely for the purpose of dueling. That was how he was improving so fast, aside from his daily practice with Flitwick.

Harry entered the room of requirement and smiled at the 4 training dummies waiting for him.

Apparently the room decided to increase his opponents from 3 to 4. Hogwarts must have thought that he had become better in dueling now.

He was glad that his training was showing results because he had put a lot of effort into learning how to fight.

After all, he knew that sooner or later a war would take over Wizarding Britain and he would eventually have to step in and kick the shit out a few people.

And he couldn't do it if he didn't even knew how to fight.

So yeah, training how to fight or 'dueling', as the wizards so eloquently put it, was always something that he needed to work on.

So over the past few months he had been coming here everyday and practicing for at least 1 hour in the least.

This was one of the main reasons why he was getting so good in his duels against Professor Flitwick, who, despite all these months of training was still kicking his ass though now a days the man had to work for those wins.

Still, to see that he was improving was always a nice feeling.

He removed his robe and kept it beside the door.

If he fought the training dummies while wearing his robe that was filled to the brim with Defensive runes and patched up with Basilisk skin then this fight wouldn't even be called a fight as most of the low level spells launched by the dummies would never hit him in the first place.

On another note, now that Hermione knew about all three of his time turners and has started to use them alongside her, she would notice his absence more easily and sooner or the later the truth about this room would come out.

So it might be best for him to tell her about it instead.

And while he was at it, he would start teaching her how to duel as well.

Just because she was young didn't stop her and the original Harry from chasing after Quirrelmort or the Basilisk or an escaped convict in the movies so he didn't see why it should stop her now.

Plus, as his subordinate/friend/future-lover she would have to take part in her own share of battles so it was important that she knew how to fight and he would do his best to prepare her for the upcoming war no matter what anyone else says.

With such thoughts, he flexed his shoulders and stood in between the four dummies, waiting for the beating that he was about to suffer soon enough.

Because just like the Pheonix that rises from the ashes, he will too… wait, that just sounds cheesy now.

The point was that he may lose this fight but he'll get better and eventually win the war.

The training dummies readied their wands and he reminded himself to one day study how these things work before the beating started.

—————

Sitting in the Quidditch stadium with all the people had always made him uncomfortable. He was just that anti social.

Thankfully, Hermione and Penelope had taken it in account this time and had allowed him to keep his Shroud of Concealment active throughout the whole game.

Penelope had told him that it would be one of the most important matches of the year because the winner of this match will play in the final and being the Quidditch fanatic that she was, she could not miss it no matter what.

The problem was that like all other fanatics in the world, she had to wanted to spread her fanaticism to other people and being one of the closest person to her in the school aside from her boyfriend, she had pleaded him to come with him.

He had of course refused because he had better things to do than to watch some stupid teenagers trying to kill each other with heavy metal balls.

But Penelope had taken the art of pleading to a whole new level this time and when Hermione suggested that he could join her while wearing his shroud of concealment and Penelope had agreed, his defense faltered and they finally overpowered him into coming to this stupid event.

The only saving grace was that he was able to create a spell for himself that would allow him to lower the volume from his surroundings as he wished so if the students got too loud, he could just use the spell to lower their voice.

And the fact that Hermione had decided to come along with him and Penelope.

After all, the match was between the Slytherins and the Ravenclaws so her house loyalty should not be questioned by anyone.

Not that she would ever be loyal to a house that openly allowed it's members to bully her and almost caused her death no matter how indirectly.

Her words.

So here he was, sitting in the top last seat in the stadium along with and excited Penelope and a hidden Hermione.

He was proud of the fact that Hermione was able to use the Shroud constantly nowadays even if she had to focus on it most of the time.

These next few hours would prove to be good practice for her.

He also wondered about his other group member who was sitting on the other side of the stadium along with her friend Tracy Davis and Blaise Zabini.

Of course, he had just escorted her future version to the underground hidden Potions' lab he recently created so there was that as well.

After the first few days when she had joined his group, he had come to realize that she was very good in Potions.

And by very good, he meant Very very good.

Apparently after her mother had died, her father had started new classes for both her and her sister and Potions was among one of those classes since it doesn't require magic to create potions and she wasn't breaking any laws by learning it.

Because of that, she had become very good at it, not that she ever showed her expertise in the class, what with her being a perfect Slytherin and all that crap.

Still, she was very good at the subject and because of that, she started gaining interest in it as well.

In fact, after they had become a little comfortable with each other, she had disclosed to him that she wanted to become a Potions mistress in the future as that position would give her both respect and a high standing in the society.

Getting rich off of her potions would just be a side benefit.

But now that she was under his wing, he would of course not be satisfied with her being a simple Potions mistress.

If it's worth doing, then it's worth doing well.

It was one of the motto that he followed.

So if she was going to be a Potions mistress then he would see that she becomes the best in her field.

He had even given her all of Snape's books from 1st to 7th year as a gift.

She had not stopped pestering him about the real identity of the Half blood Prince for a few days after that and when he had refused to tell her, she had gone ahead to search on her own.

And being the clever Slytherin that she was, it took her only a few days to find out the real identity of the owner of those books.

And from the looks that she kept giving Snape after she came to know the truth, he had doubts that if Snape was a half decent bloke and a bit good looking then she would have developed her first puppy love right then and there.

Thankfully, Snape was a rather repulsive person, even for those who respected his skills so he didn't have the misfortune of watching one of his friend/ally salivating after the man.

Because that would be just…

Eughhh!!!

The sound of the whistle along with the cheers brought his attention back to the stadium and he realized that the match had started and by this point, he doubted that Penelope even remembered that they were there.

By the way she was shouting and jumping on her seat, he had a feeling that she didn't.

~Sigh~ Why was he here again?