บท 5: Chapter 6
Harry walked through the door of his foster home with a faint sense
of resignation. He would have much rather skipped the hollow
reunion routine that Robert and Katherine were no doubt going to be
intent on going through even though there was nobody to see it.
"I'm home." He announced without enthusiasm.
He heard them coming a second later.
"Welcome… back?" Robert said, trailing off in confusion as he took
in the changes in his adopted son.
"What are they feeding you at that school of yours?" Katherine
asked, sounding genuinely amazed. "You're huge!"
Harry shifted awkwardly. The Weasleys hadn't commented on his
size, probably out of politeness and Xeno Lovegood may not even
have registered anything strange, but he knew that he was too big
for his age. He might be just shy of thirteen years old, but he looked
closer to fifteen thanks to the runes. He'd even caught the first hints
of facial hair growing on his chin a while ago. To the Shaws, who
hadn't seen him for ten months, the difference in his appearance
must be massive.
"Just a growth spurt I guess."
Katherine came closer, reaching out to touch the mess that was his
hair. It too was growing faster than normal and now hung just above
his shoulders. It was currently at that annoying midway length where
it was long enough to be annoying, but not quite long enough to be
put into a ponytail.
"And your hair is a complete mess again." She fussed. "We'll have to
get it cut soon."
Harry leaned away from her, not even bothering to be annoyed
anymore. Of course she'd be worried about appearances right away.
He'd stopped hoping for a hug by the time he was nine. That, and
her perfume was stirring up his libido, which was still creepy.
"I was actually thinking of growing it long." He told her, taking an
inordinate amount of pleasure in the appalled expressions it got him.
"No son of ours will be going around looking like some long-haired
hooligan." Robert said firmly, his wife nodding in agreement.
Harry's expression brielfy twisted in irritation at their narrowmindedness. Fortunately, he'd prepared some countermeasures
ahead of time.
Not for the sake of his hair mind you, but it would be a good test.
Taking a deep breath, Harry used the months of Occlumency
practice to suffuse his mind with a feeling of calm . Then he focused
it and sent a pair of wandless calming spells at his foster parents.
"It's really not that big of a deal." He said in a conversational tone
that hid his anxiety to see if it had worked. "We're not in the 1950s
anymore, lots of men wear their hair long these days."
"I guess it won't be a problem if you style it properly." Katherine
agreed with some reluctance.
Robert was still frowning however, clearly more resistant to either the
idea or the effects of the spell. "I still think it would be better to keep
it short."
Harry sent another calming spell at him, feeling incredibly pleased
with the fact that it produced no flashy jets of light.
"Men frequently wear their hair long in the Wizarding World. It's
tradition."
A tradition for Heirs and Lords of Noble Houses that had pretty much
died out and which Harry didn't give two shits about, but he needed
to test how much he could bend the wills of his nominal guardians. If
he could use this to talk them into not objecting to him keeping his
hair long, then he might also be able to use it to dodge any kind of
responsibility for the whole summer.
Illegal? Mildly.
Immoral? Definitely.
"Alright." Robert capitulated, being a proponent of tradition. "But only
if you get it styled into something elegant instead of the rat's nest it is
now."
Convenient? Extremely.
Harry stared at the row of hair products in consternation, wondering
if long hair was really worth it if he had to bother with all that crap.
Maybe the Wizarding World had some kind of enchanted soap that
simplified hair care? It probably did, he'd noticed a trend in the
differences between the magical and non-magical. The magical
world made small things incredibly convenient, but lacked wide scale
sophistication, whereas the non-magical world excelled at large
projects but contained numerous day to day inconveniances that
couldn't simply be magicked away.
His introduction to the inconveniances of the non-magical female
had been arranged by his foster mother. Calming spells might have
worked to convince her that there was nothing wrong with a boy
having long hair, but that was because she'd been upset about his
refusal to comply and her personal dislike of the practice.
Convincing Katherine that it didn't need to be fastidiously taken care
of would have taken an Imperius. She had seemingly decided that if
he was going to keep the long hair, then they were going to make a
day of it.
Harry had not been that bored in a long time and spent most of the
day practicing his Occlumency. How women could find that
enjoyable was beyond him. He had to admit that he had enjoyed
having a pretty hairdresser massaging his scalp though, slightly
embarrassing though the trip to the obviously female targeted
business had been.
At least he'd managed to buy that high-powered laptop he'd been
meaning to get in addition to learning entirely too much about hair
care. Now if only he could figure out how get a charger running in
Potter Manor. Enchanting an object into being some kind of selfpropelling dynamo wouldn't be a problem for him at this point, but
putting together a gizmo to take advantage of it would be.
Charlus and Dorea had been eager to hear how the Chamber of
Secrets business had been concluded and were amazed that Harry
had participated in the slaying of an ancient basilisk, even if it was
with a rooster. They were also quite proud of him for making a profit
out of instead of letting Dumbledore claim the entire carcass.
"Whoever slipped your friend that cursed diary must have been a
Death Eater." Dorea theorized.
"And Dobby was probably their house elf." Charlus added.
"Probably." Harry agreed.
"I can only be thankful that their foolishness resulted in Voldemort's
soul container being destroyed." Dorea said with a shudder. "It does
not bear thinking of that he might have returned if such things
function as you said, Harry."
"No mention of soul containers in the Black Library?" Charlus asked.
"There very well might be, my family would certainly not think twice
about keeping knowledge of such foul magic alive." Dorea replied
with a distasteful frown. "It was not something I had ever considered
reading up on, nor did my Head of House at the time allow me free
access to the library since I was not of the main line."
"I guess we should just be glad that Voldemort didn't get a chance to
regain his body." Charlus said with a sigh.
"Would I be able to access the Black Library?" Harry asked
thoughtfully. He knew that creating a phylactery himself more than
likely carried a steeper price than he was willing to pay, but he still
wanted to learn about it. Dumbledore was the only person who
seemed to know anything about the subject and asking him didn't
strike Harry as a smart thing to do.
Neither Charlus nor Dorea were too happy about the direction of
Harry's interests right now, but they weren't really people. They were
portraits, and family portraits are always made to help the still living
members of the family. Since Harry was the last Potter, they were
compelled to obey his orders and answer his questions regardless of
their own opinions.
"No, you were never keyed into the wards. The war with Voldemort
has not been kind to the House of Black; most of its members are
dead and the rest in prison. I believe that Sirius is next in line to
become Lord Black, but he is currently rotting in Azkaban." Dorea
finished bitterly.
Harry had done some investigating into his parents and their friends
after being told about them by his grandparents. That was why he
knew that Pettigrew was dead, that Remus Lupin had seemingly
vanished off the face of the Earth and that Sirius Black was in
Azkaban for betraying his parents to Voldemort, as well as the
murder of twelve muggles and Peter Pettigrew.
Sirius had been like a son to her and Charlus, they would have
adopted him if it wasn't for inter-House politics. The idea that he
would have betrayed James and Lily to Voldemort was ludicrous.
The memories that Harry had unlocked after performing his second
ritual had only reinforced that belief. After all, why would Sirius have
just given Harry to Hagrid if he had really been in Voldemort's
service?
No, whatever had happened that night, they were certain that Sirius
was innocent of betraying the Potters. The charges of murdering
Pettigrew and twelve muggles were harder to dismiss however,
especially if Pettigrew was the real traitor. Sirius had always been a
hothead and it was far from impossible that he might have thrown
out a careless blasting curse in the throes of rage.
"You must have been quite the school hero for the rest of the year
after that." Charlus said with forced amusement, trying to move away
from the depressing topic.
"You could say that." Harry grumbled a bit, though a smile pulled at
his lips. Most of the school might have been annoyingly curious, but
his mysterious late night visitor had certainly made up for it with her
particular show of gratitude.
"Did any girls get crushes on you?" Dorea teased.
Harry shrugged, though he couldn't quite keep a tinge of pink off his
cheeks. Aside from Ginny, he wasn't aware of any crushes, but that
wasn't what he was thinking about.
"I know that look." Charlus said with a grin. "James and Sirius always
had the same shifty look on their faces when they'd just been having
a discussion about witches and didn't want us to know about it. What
happened, Harry? Did a pretty girl show you her gratitude with a
kiss?"
"Yes." Harry admitted, electing not to mention what had happened
before the kiss.
"Who was she?" Dorea asked curiously.
"I, er, don't know."
"How can you not know?" Charlus asked, baffled. "Surely she didn't
just walk up to you, kiss you, and then leave without ever introducing
herself?"
No, she just snuck into my room in the middle of the night, gave me
a handjob, kissed me and left without introducing herself. Harry
thought to himself with a mental snicker despite his embarrassment.
He could only give another shrug to Charlus though, having no idea
what to tell the man without outright lying, which he was reluctant to
do.
"Harry, how old was this girl?" Dorea questioned suspiciously.
"Errr, she was a seventh year." He admitted with a nervous fidget.
"Going after the older girls, eh Harry?" Charlus chuckled while Dorea
muttered disapprovingly.
"She went after me." Harry corrected, lips being pulled into a grin.
"Said that she wanted to show me how much she appreciated my
efforts."
"Women do like poweful wizards." Charlus said, exchanging a sly
look with his grandson.
"Men." Dorea huffed, hiding her own amusement.
Harry spent the next couple of weeks in intense study, desperately
trying to bring his knowledge of mathemathics and arithmancy up to
the point where he would be able to perform another ritual. Learning
how to use a computer to help with that pursuit also took up some
time, but all in all he felt that he was making good progress.
It was fortunate that unlike spells, rituals were fairly structured things
and he could re-use a lot of the work from his previous two. The task
of precisely defining the movements of the knife was time consuming
and difficult with only a miniscule margin for error, but it did not
contain any of the bizzare variables that magic introduced into
spellcraft. It was essentially pure science, reliably predictable and
math heavy, whereas crafting a new spell was oftentimes more of an
art.
Robert and Katherine occasionally tried to drag him off to some
social event or another and kept making plans for turning his
birthday into one.
Judicious application of calming spells and what weak compulsions
he could cast kept things under control for the most part. Any sense
of guilt that Harry might have felt at magically messing with their
heads was overshadowed by his relief at having a means to get
them to bugger off.
He received no letters from either Luna or Ginny, which was to be
expected given his little owl problem. He still had no idea how he
was going to deal with that, if it even could be dealt with. The three
of them had agreed not to bother with letters over the summer due to
a combination of that issue and him not having an owl of his own, but
there was another letter he was expecting that would probably turn
out to be problematic when it couldn't be delivered.
Namely, his Hogwarts supply list for third year. In all likelihood, he
would need to explain himself to an irate Deputy Headmistress come
August when the school owls found themselves unable to deliver
anything to him.
Filling his days with nothing but sleeping, eating and study quickly
began to make Harry a dull boy however. He still kept at it in spite of
that, which turned him from a dull boy into a frustrated one and then
an angry one, at which point he became about ready to set his notes
on fire if he had to look at one more symbol.
Seeing as this would be incredibly counter-productive, he decided to
take a day off instead.
Standing in a bus on the way to the cinema, Harry debated whether
he should praise or curse the capricious whims of the weather.
The July temperatures in London usually hung around 20°C, but
2013 was turning out to be an unusually hot year. Furthermore, July
22nd was turning out to be an unusually hot day in an already
unusually hot year, with temperatures going over 30°C.
Harry had not yet mastered wandless cooling charms and was
reduced to sweating it out like everyone else. At least the bus had air
conditioning.
On the up side, he was standing next to the seat of a pretty girl that
was perhaps sixteen or seventeen years old, who was wearing a pair
of very short jean shorts and a black tank top that gave him a perfect
view down her cleavage. The Wizarding World could boast about a
lot of things, but sexy female clothing was not one of them. He hadn't
even realized what he was missing until he saw the barely
perceptible sheen of sweat on a pair of firm teenaged breasts. The
compulsive power of rune enhanced puberty kept his eyes glued to
the sight of them.
The girl looked up. She saw him staring.
"See something you like, Green-Eyes?" She asked, both as a
warning and challenge.
Shite. I really need to stop getting caught doing that. Time to dip into
the excuse box, Potter.
"I'm sorry," He began with an awkward smile. "I go to a boarding
school with a very strict dress code and I don't get to see pretty girls
in anything but stodgy uniforms for most of the year."
The girl snorted, either amused or unimpressed. Harry couldn't quite
tell.
Harry bit his lip, an idea popping into his mind. He'd gotten used to
having friendly company around, which was why he'd decided on
going to the cinema instead of staying in his room and fooling around
on the internet or gaming like he usually did, but it still wasn't the
same as having Luna around(or even Ginny).
This girl was a complete stranger and might very well be mildly
pissed at him for the staring, but they were already sort of talking
and he could use the company. As a bonus, she was quite pretty,
had almost certainly never heard of the Boy-Who-Lived(the chances
of her being a witch or having a magical relative had to be insanely
remote) and would probably assume that he was only slightly
younger than her instead of the not-quite-thirteen year old that he
actually was.
"Listen, I'm sorry about the staring. How about you let me take you to
dinner and a movie as an apology?" He offered, employing his hard
earned skill at Occlumency to keep any hints of nervous stutter out
of his voice and the much resented etiquette lessons that Robert and
Katherine had forced on him to sound smoother than he felt.
She looked up at him again, this time speculatively. She had a small
metal stud in her nose and another one in her tongue if his eyes did
not deceive him. Her eyes were a very dark brown and her hair was
obviously dyed black. Aside from her jean shorts and tank top, all
she had on her were a pair of scuffed trainers and a deliberately
beaten up looking tan green bag that sported a plenthora of doodles
depicting what he guessed were band signs.
His foster parents would have been horrified if they knew that he was
associating with someone like her, which just made it better as far as
he was concerned.
"Are you asking me on a date?" She asked.
"I guess I am." He replied evenly, doing his level best to keep the
blood away from his face.
She stayed quiet for a while, deliberately prolonging his torment.
Most of her already mild irritation at his peeping had dissipated when
he'd apologized, so she was not entirely opposed to his suggestion
and it wasn't like she'd had any plans for the day in the first place.
The black haired boy was more polite than what she was used to
and a bit on the young side, but not at all bad looking, had the most
gorgeous green eyes she'd ever seen and probably had money to
spare if his mention of going to a boarding school was true. As far as
random date requests went, this one was actually quite appealing.
"Alright, Green-Eyes, I'll go on a date with you."
"Harry." He introduced himself with a smile, offering her his hand.
"Zoe." She smiled back, taking the hand.
Harry had already learned with Luna that being around people that
didn't expect anything from you could be fun. He learned with Zoe
that just goofing off for a while was very liberating. He couldn't even
recall the last time he'd felt so relaxed.
They went to an 'all you can eat' type restaurant first, where he
decided to show off a bit by eating enough for three grown men,
much to his date's disgusted awe and fascination.
After that they went to see a movie, where Harry learned that Zoe
was one of those people that liked to point out plot holes, logic
failures and inconsistencies rather than watch quietly. They didn't
make any new friends there.
Harry mentioned reading somewhere that the Headmaster of his
school enjoyed ten-pin bowling, which had Zoe suggesting that they
go do that since neither of them had ever tried it. As it turned out,
they both sucked at it.
Harry paid for everything without really giving it much thought. He'd
grown up rich, but rarely spent anything until recently. He
remembered what it was like to be poor all too well and had no
desire to return to that through careless spending, no matter how
unlikely it was. He hadn't expected to have this much fun on their
date and the last thing he wanted to do was spoil it by being cheap.
The day had to end eventually though and the two of them set off
toward home, though it was long after it had gotten dark.
"I can't believe that you're stuffing your face again." Zoe was saying
in exasperation, staring at the subway sandwich Harry had picked up
a short while ago.
"I'm a growing boy." He replied with the standard excuse.
"You'll be growing sideways if you don't watch it, you plonker." She
threw back with a wide grin.
"You're just jealous." He retorted smugly.
"Damn right I'm jealous!" The girl exclaimed loudly, scowling
playfully. "You've been shoving food down your gob the whole bloody
day like it's nothing. If it tried that, I'd be the size of a bus in a
month."
"A double decker." Harry agreed with a laugh.
"Prat."
They lapsed into silence for a while, just waiting for their respective
buses to arrive to take them home while Harry finished off his latest
meal.
"Harry, listen…" Zoe started, suddenly nervous. "I had a really great
time today…"
"So did I." He replied, wondering what she was trying to say.
"… But I don't think we should be doing this again."
Harry blinked at the sudden serious turn the evening had taken.
"I didn't really expect us to." He admitted after a moment. "I don't get
much free time. Today was an exception because I was overworked,
but I'm going to be busy for the rest of the summer and then I'll be off
in my school for ten months. I like you, but I never expected this to
be more than a one time thing."
And that wasn't even mentionning that he had to keep magic a
secret from her. He had no idea what the protocol was for bringing
someone new in on it, but he suspected that it was pretty draconian.
Not that he had an abundance of respect for the Ministry's laws, but
he did have respect for the consequences of those laws.
"Yeah… I kind of have a boyfriend already anyway." She admitted,
scratching awkwardly at the back of her head.
Harry blinked again and stared at her for a long few seconds.
"Won't he be upset that you went on a date with me?"
"We're having a bit of a break right now, so it's cool."
"Huh… okay then."
They lapsed into silence again, a significantly more uncomfortable
one this time.
"So… this school of yours gives you homework to do over the
summer?" Zoe asked after a minute.
"Yep, quite a lot of it actually." None of which he'd even looked at yet.
The preparations for the next ritual had consumed all of his attention.
"Barbaric."
"Absolutely."
"We can still stay in touch though, right?" She asked brightly. "You
can never have too many friends."
Harry winced. Staying in touch while he was at Hogwarts would be
quite the feat. Owls and the Floo Network were the only ways for
students to communicate with the outside world and neither would
work for talking to someone that didn't know about magic.
"That might be a problem." He said after a few seconds. "The school
I go to is seriously isolated. I'd be shocked if there's so much as a
phone anywhere within fifty kilometers of it."
In fact, he knew that there wasn't one.
Zoe's face fell into a sad expression.
"You don't have to lie, Harry. If you're mad at me for not mentioning
my boyfriend, then just tell me."
"I'm not lying." Harry insisted. "There really isn't any phone or
internet access at my school."
"Where the hell do you go to school, the middle of the Atlantic?" She
asked sarcastically, not at all convinced.
"Some Scottish Highland in the ass end of nowhere actually." He
admitted ruefully.
"You're serious?!" She asked incredulously.
"Afraid so."
"What could they possibly be teaching you up there without any
technology, the best way to shag a sheep?"
Harry snickered, having a bizzare mental image of McGonagall
transfiguring a desk into the aforementioned animal and tutoring
them in the proper technique to shag it in true Scottish fashion. It
certainly gave him a new perspective on the possible alternative
uses of transfiguration.
"It's a very… traditional… sort of place." He evaded, rapidly
developing an appreciation for how much bullshit the non-magical
family members of wizards and witches had to shovel to keep magic
a secret.
"Keep telling yourself that, sheep shagger."
"I'll have you know that everyone there is very right and proper, they
would've been scandalized by your pierced tongue and poor
manners." Harry retorted lightly, knowing that he was probably right.
The wizard-raised would be both baffled and horrified at the idea of
having a metal stud in one's tongue.
"So it's a bunch of snobbish sheep shaggers?" She asked.
Harry gave it a moment's thought before giving a slow nod. He could
easily imagine Draco Malfoy with his nose up in the air even while
shagging a sheep. He wished he hadn't imagined it, but it was too
late for that now.
"A lot of them are snobby."
"I'm actually kind of surprised that you aren't." She admitted.
"Why? Because my foster parents are snobby twats?" He asked with
a raised eyebrow.
"Foster parents? I thought they were your real parents."
"Nah, my real parents were murdered by a psychotic neo-nazi when
I was a year old." That was as good a description for Voldemort as
any.
Zoe recoiled in shock despite his casual tone and stared at him in
horror.
"Don't worry about it, it was a long time ago. I've gotten over it."
Harry assured her.
Well, I've mostly gotten over it.
"I guess that explains why you're not a snobby rich kid, haha." She
said, giving a nervous (and quite fake) laugh.
"Sorry, probably shouldn't have just blurted it out like that."
"It was a bit of a surprise." She admitted and they went silent again.
"I think that's your bus." Harry said about a minute later, seeing the
vehicle in question approaching.
Zoe bit her lip at that, suddenly looking a bit indecisive for a moment
before her face firmed in resolve. The next thing Harry knew, she
was mashing her lips up against his.
Eyes going wide in shock, Harry responded on a clumsy autopilot,
feeling the now familiar shiver of magic pulse from his runes as his
arousal rose. He was barely aware of his hands going around her to
grab her rear end as he began to respond more enthusiastically.
"My mum isn't coming home until tomorrow." She whispered into his
ear when they separated, the invitation clear.
Later on, Harry would have liked to say that he had considered this
offer carefully and thought about various factors such as his brief
acquaintance with Zoe, her uncertain relationship status, his youth
and several other things.
In reality, most of his higher reasoning had migrated south along with
his blood. Indeed, his most complex thought was something along
the lines of ' I'm getting laid! '.
Inexperienced with this kind of situation and unsure of how to accept,
he merely gave her butt a squeeze and leaned in for another kiss.
They got on the bus together and spent an impatient ten minutes
touching in a way that didn't really help with the waiting.
Then they made a B line towards the apartment building where Zoe
lived with her mother, her father not being around for reasons that
Harry had felt it unwise to press her on. An interesting session of
heavy elevator snogging and a short walk down the hallway later,
they were through the door of the flat.
Harry had only a few seconds to take in the small-ish living space as
Zoe led him to her room. It was fairly tidy, but the pile of towels on
the couch, a few dirty dishes in the sink and traces of dust in places
betrayed the fact that the people living here were not as obsessive
about neatness as he was used to. Teeny would have a nervous
breakdown at the thought of a mess being left anywhere in a place
that people lived and Robert and Katherine would turn their noses up
so high that they'd be able to collect rainwater with their nostrils.
The thought of his foster parents penetrated the lust currently
fogging his brain and he recalled that he had to do something.
"Hang on a second." He said, pulling out his phone. "I need to call
Katherine and tell her that I'm not coming home today."
"They don't like you slipping the leash?" Zoe smirked, toying with the
waistband of her shorts.
"You could say that." Harry grumbled. "I wouldn't put it past her to
call the police and make a huge scene."
And not out of worry that he'd been kidnapped or something either,
since it would hardly be the first time that he'd slept over in Potter
Manor. No, she'd do it for the publicity. Then she would spend the
next month or so milking the 'I was so scared' card before it got old.
She probably wouldn't do it since it might also make her look
neurotic, but it was best to not give her an excuse.
Sometimes, Harry got the distinct feeling that Robert and Katherine
were actually hoping that someone would kidnap him, just so that
they'd have a legitimate reason to plaster themselves all over the
news.
"Go ahead then." Zoe said, still smirking and starting to take off her
clothes.
Harry had some trouble finding the name of his foster mother with
the impromptu striptease going on in front of him. To be fair, the
mismatched pair of black bra and blue thong was a lot more
interesting. He did manage to call her eventually though.
" Hello? " Katherine answered with her usual overdone sense of
poise.
"Katherine, hi. I'm not going to be coming home today." Harry said
without preamble, the majority of his attention fixed on Zoe.
" Sleeping over in the magical house your parents left you again? "
Katherine asked rhetorically, a fair bit of bite in her words. " Robert
and I would really like to see it one day, you know. "
Harry did know, the two of them hadn't stopped wheedling about it
since they'd learned that he actually owned something. Call him
paranoid, but Harry wasn't keen to let them anywhere near Potter
Manor. He feared for the antique furniture at the very least, even if
two non-magicals didn't really have any right to them according to
wizard law. Both Robert and Katherine had a sense of entitlement to
rival any wizard and were sure to attempt getting their mitts on
anything they could. He didn't even want to think about their reaction
to the vaults full of gold he had in Gringotts.
"You know it's not that easy." He said back, a trace of irritation
seeping into his own tone.
Zoe looked at him curiously and suddenly developed a mischievous
grin.
" Yes, so you said. These wards of yours that are supposed to repel
non-magical people. " Katherine replied, dubiously. Not that she
doubted their existence, merely their ability to affect her. She was
just about arrogant enough to think herself too strong willed for that."
But it's your house. Couldn't you disable them or something? "
While Katherine had been talking, Zoe had taken the opportunity to
yank his shorts down to his ankles, leaving him suddenly and
unceremoniously exposed.
Harry gaped at Zoe in shock at the unexpected move. She winked
back up at him from her kneeling position and pushed him to sit on
the bed.
" Harry, are you still there? "
"Wh- yeah, I'm still here." He said, sounding much more flustered
than before.
" What happened? You sound strange. "
Inwardly cursing nosy foster mothers who couldn't just end the
fucking call already, Harry made up a quick excuse.
"Um, the carpet grabbed my leg."
Zoe slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from bursting into
giggles at what probably sounded like an outrageous lie to her.
" Animated carpets. Honestly, I will never understand why anyone
would use magic for something like that. "
Neither would Harry to be perfectly honest, but he was for once glad
that wizards and witches were generally insane enough for pretty
much anything to sound plausible.
"Me neithER!"
" What was it this time? "
"Stubbed my toe." Harry answered with strain in his voice.
He hadn't of course, since he was quite stationery. The real reason
was that Zoe had apparently gotten impatient and decided to start
him off with a blowjob, though the amused gleam in her dark eyes
suggested that she was also doing it to add some extra difficulty to
his phone call.
" Figures that you'd be clumsy with how fast you're growing. I read
that people that grow quickly tend to be less aware of their body. "
Katherine commented, oblivious to the fact that her audience
couldn't care less if he tried.
"That's great." Harry replied, not sure if he was saying it to his foster
mother or the girl currently demonstrating the uses of a tongue stud
during oral sex.
" You must have hit your toe really hard, you sound like you're in a
lot of pain. "
"Yes, pain." Harry agreed, clenching his teeth tightly as Zoe suddenly
hollowed out her cheeks and began sucking on him earnestly.
"Listen Katherine, I really need to do something about this."
What he really needed to do was warn Zoe that he was about to
blow and he could hardly do that with his foster mother still on the
line. He'd already tried to tug on her hair but she didn't seem to be
getting the message.
"Alright, but do look into lowering those wards later. "
Unable to hold back any more, Harry resigned himself to getting
yelled at for unloading in a girl's mouth without warning her.
" Harry? " Katherine asked, no doubt hearing his heavy breathing
through the nose as Zoe kept on sucking through his orgasm,
apparently unbothered by the lack of warning.
"Yeah, I got it. Talk to you later, Katherine." Harry said and ended the
call, trying not to sound too relieved when Zoe popped his
oversensitive cock out of her mouth.
While Harry took a moment to catch his breath, Zoe took a tissue
and a bottle of water from her bag, spat the semen she'd so
industriously extracted from him into it and then gulped down a few
mouthfuls of water.
"Sorry." He apologized with a wince.
"Don't be, you taste a lot better than Jeff ever did. Man eats too
much cheese." Zoe replied with a shrug.
Not exactly the response he'd been expecting, but Harry made a
note to investigate the effects of food on the taste of his sperm.
"I meant for not warning you." He clarified.
"Oh Harry, you really think I couldn't tell?" Zoe chuckled, stepping
closer until panty clad crotch was practically rubbing against his
nose. There was a small spot of wetness on the blue fabric that
made her own arousal clear. "It was obvious, even if you did cum as
quick as a virgin."
"I am a virgin." Harry admitted, resisting the surprisingly strong
temptation to bury his nose in her crotch. The runes had settled
down a bit after his orgasm, but the faint smell of her arousal was
quickly bringing his own back and the magic with it.
"Really?" There was a hint of incredulity in Zoe's voice that baffled
Harry. He looked fifteen at most and she couldn't possibly be more
than seventeen, though she was probably sixteen. What was so
strange about being a virgin at that age?
"Really." He confirmed, looking at her a bit oddly.
"We'll have to do something about that." She said with a smirk,
pulling his shirt off, unclipping her bra and sliding her thong down her
legs to expose her recently shaved crotch. "But first, how about
getting me ready?"
It was quite obvious what she wanted and Harry wasn't opposed to it
in the slightest. The smell was certainly enticing.
He leaned in closer and hesitantly dragged his tongue across her
slit, unsure what to expect. To his mild surprise, there wasn't much of
a taste to her sex aside from the salty tang of her sweat from the hot
day and a very faint musk that corresponded to the smell of her.
Zoe's hands went into his hair as he continued his slow exploration
of her lower lips, getting bolder every time she made a sound of
pleasure. He kept it up for a minute or two before becoming
dissatisfied with the position. With him sitting down and her standing
in front of him, he had fairly limited access and he wanted to change
it.
Zoe made a small sound of disappointment when he nudged her to
get on the bed, but she did it anyway, settling herself on it and
spreading her legs for him. She looked like she was about to say
something, but stopped herself when he once again went for her
crotch with his face.
"You're doing pretty well for a virgin." She said with a pleased sigh,
running her fingers through his hair. "Most boys don't like licking a
girl, they just stick it in and start hammering away."
Buried as he was in muff, Harry couldn't respond, but he couldn't for
the life of him understand why anyone would dislike this. Sure, he
was almost painfully hard, but there was nowhere he'd rather be
right now. Besides, she'd sucked him off and it seemed only right to
return the favor.
"Higher." She directed, tugging on his hair.
Harry obliged and moved upward, leaving her vaginal opening alone
for now.
"Just a little bit higher."
Puzzled as to why, he nonetheless did as he was told and moved his
tongue a little bit higher. He figured that his tongue had nearly
completely left her nether lips when she suddenly bucked with a
quickly indrawn breath.
Intrigued by the powerful reaction, he dragged his tongue over the
same area again.
"Yes! Right there." Zoe gasped, her hand clenching in his hair almost
painfully.
That was exactly what he'd been about to do either way, so Harry
was more than happy to follow her directions again. Several more
long licks over the area revealed a little nub of some sort that
appeared to elicit an especially intense reaction, so he began to
focus on it exclusively.
This quickly had Zoe panting her way to an orgasm, squeezing her
legs around Harry's head to stop him from abusing her
overstimulated clitoris any further.
"Wow… not bad." She breathed. "You were a bit clueless at the start
and a bit too rough at the end, but not bad at all. I give you a six out
of ten in licking pussy."
Wiping the spit and other fluids off his jaw, Harry shot her an amused
look. "You have a scale?"
"Oh yes." She confirmed with a giggle. "'one' is 'painful and not at all
pleasant' and 'ten' is 'explosive squirting'."
Harry didn't really know how to respond to that, so he just ran his
hand across her still spread legs and shuffled closer, lining himself
up with her opening.
"Wait." Zoe stopped him, reaching over to a small nightstand and
pulling out a condom. "Put that on. I'm on the pill, but we wouldn't
want to have any accidents, would we?"
This ended up being Harry's introduction to the frustration of dealing
with condom packaging.
"Give it here." Zoe said in exasperation after seeing him fumble with
the prophylactic for a full fifteen seconds without success. With easy
motions that betrayed a lot of practice, she quickly ripped the
packaging and wrapped the latex tube around his shaft.
"Come on in." She beckonked once that was done, spreading her
legs lewdly in invitation.
Feeling a mix of eagerness and nervous anticipaton, Harry moved
forward and placed his hands on the enticing pair of breasts that had
started this whole sequence of events, sinking into her wet warmth at
the same time.
Once he was completely inside her, she suddenly pulled him down
on top of her, wrapping her legs around his waist and grabbing the
back of his head to whisper in his ear.
"Your virginity is mine now, Harry, and you're never getting it back."
He looked at her incredulously and she burst out laughing,
apparently unable to keep a straight face.
"Sorry, I've always wanted to say that." She explained with a giggle.
"Now get to the shagging, and try not to blow your load in thirty
seconds again."
Ever since he'd completed his first ritual and discovered the
unexpected side-effects, Harry had occasionally pondered what a
rune like Uruz would mean for his sexual stamina. He hadn't noticed
any particular difference during his many wand polishing sessions,
nor had he lasted long during the surprise handjob at the end of his
second year, but he hadn't wanted to dismiss the possibility.
He finally had a definite answer.
"Why are you hard again? How are you hard again." Zoe asked
plaintively, exhaustion evident in her tone.
"Must be magic." Harry quipped, snickering at his private joke.
He may not have lasted very long the first couple of times, but his
recovery period was turning out to be inhumanly fast. He'd also built
enough stamina that he was lasting a much more respectable length
of time by round six, which was now.
"Well you and your magical cock are going to have to calm down
because I'm running out of condoms. I can't use them all on you, in
one night no less."
"I'll buy you as many as you want tomorrow." He offered, flicking his
tongue over one of her nipples.
"You're damn right you will, but I'm tired." Zoe continued in the same
plaintive voice as before. "And sore. And sweaty. I just want to take a
shower and go to sleep."
"Want me to wash your back?" Truth be told, he was pretty tired
himself and wouldn't mind a shower and sleep either, but teasing the
girl he'd exhausted was making his ego skyrocket.
She snorted. "Nice try, but our shower isn't even close to big enough
for that."
"Aww."
"Tell you what, Harry. I'll give you another blowjob in the bathroom if
you stop poking me in the arse with that thing." Zoe offered tiredly.
"Okay." Harry quickly agreed.
He might be tired, but a blowjob was a blowjob.
The next morning, Harry left Zoe's apartment block with a skip in his
step after leaving behind a twenty pound note to pay for the amount
of condoms he'd used, feeling subtly different than when he'd gone
in. For all the effort he'd put into learning Occlumency, his hormones
had still been all over the place ever since his first rune set. They
were still all over the place and would continue to be until his
accelerated puberty was over, but the sex seemed to have made it a
bit better. The magic in the in his runes felt a bit less chaotic.
Or it could just be that he was in a good mood and was imagining
things.
Harry got back to work on his ritual after that, finding it much easier
now that he was no longer wound tighter than a steel cable.
He resisted the urge to do more with Zoe than send an occasional
text, regardless of the understandable urge to focus on the pretty girl
instead of the preparations to carve a set of symbols into his skin
with a knife. All the reasons for why getting too close to her was a
bad idea were very valid and he'd checked the Ministry guidelines for
introducing an uninformed and unrelated muggle to magic. It was
exactly as draconian as he'd suspected it would be.
Basically, if they weren't immediate family such as a sibling, spouse,
parent or child, then it was illegal to tell them. Meaning that unless
he married her(which he obviously wasn't intending to do,
considering his actual age and their brief acquintance), he'd have to
keep Zoe in the dark or else be charged with violating the Statute of
Secrecy if he got discovered. Naturally, they'd wipe her memories as
well, including her memories of him. Harry wasn't so confident in his
ability to fool the Ministry that he'd be willing to risk it and that wasn't
even taking into account how Zoe herself might react to the notion of
magic.
On the home front, his foster parents continued their attempts to use
his birthday as an excuse to organize something, only to run afoul a
constant stream of calming charms and mild compulsion spells from
him until it was too late. Harry could only breathe a sigh of relief at
getting through his birthday without any fuss for a change.
As expected, he received no owls, not from Luna or Ginny for his
birthday and not from McGonagall for his school supplies.
He wasn't surprised when she showed up personally the next day.
"Would you care to explain why the Hogwarts owls seem unable to
locate you, Mr. Potter?" McGonagall asked once they were settled in
the sitting room.
"I couldn't say, Professor." Harry said evenly, being well prepared for
this conversation. "All I know is that it's been going on since
Christmas. Luna and Ginny weren't able to send me their presents
either."
"And you did not think to inform anyone of this?" The old witch asked
in a displeased tone.
"I didn't think it was that big of a deal." Harry shrugged.
"Having an Owl Ward set up around you without your knowledge or
your magical guardian's permission is indeed a 'big deal'."
McGonagall huffed and pulled out her wand.
Harry sat still while she waved it over him and muttered to herself.
This was the most nerve wracking part of the experience, where he
could do nothing but trust that Arhain would be able to frustrate her
efforts at determining the truth. He would have very much liked to tell
her that he didn't want anyone casting diagnostic spells on him, but
he knew that it would only serve to make them suspicious.
Dumbledore, being his magical guardian in loco parentis, would
probably force the issue and Harry would be legally forced to comply.
Even the more progressive laws of the mundane world didn't really
consider thirteen year olds as people in the legal sense. Rather, it
considered them as something very close to the property of their
guardians, similar to pets really. Sure, it was to protect them from
making any hugely stupid decisions due to their youth, but it still
rankled.
"That's strange." McGonagall said, looking perplexed. "I can't find
any trace of an Owl Ward."
Harry resisted the urge to say something dismissive. Being cheeky
about it was not the way to deflect suspicion.
"What is it then?" He asked instead, politely.
"I don't know." She answered with a frown, making another few
swishes over him with her wand. "I'm not detecting anything out of
the ordinary."
Harry held back a relieved sigh. Arhain was working.
"We will need to have the Headmaster and perhaps Poppy examine
you further when you return to Hogwarts."
And there was the downside. Unexplained mysteries made people
curious and nosy.
A few days after McGonagall's visit, Harry happened to be passing
through the living room where his foster parents were watching TV
when he caught sight of a very interesting article on the news.
" Mass murderer Sirius Black has escaped from prison and is
considered armed and extremely dangerous. If you see him, contact
the police immediately. Do NOT approach him. "
The article was accompanied by a picture of the man looking quite
deranged, with an elbow length tangle of hair, pasty white skin,
sunken eyes and rotten teeth. He was much changed from the few
memories of him that Harry had, but it was undoubtedly his
godfather.
There was no information on which prison he'd escaped from, which
gave Robert something to complain about, but Harry knew which
one it was. He would keep a wary eye out for any unusually large
black dogs this year. Even if he was almost positive that Sirius had
nothing to do with the deaths of his parents, there was still a good
chance of him actually being guilty for the other crimes he'd been
imprisoned for and there was no telling what state the dementors
had left him in over the past twelve years.
Mid August
Harry pushed away from his desk and thrust both his arms into the
air victoriously, a feeling of deep satisfaction filling him.
He lowered them after a few seconds and slumped into a lazy,
relieved slouch.
It was finally done. The symbols were chosen, the arithmancy
checked out, everything had been triple checked both by himself and
the computer. The ritual was ready.
Seven words, this time in kanji. He'd not quite realized how much
trouble that particular alphabet would give him when he'd chosen it,
but he hadn't wanted to back out of using it simply because it would
be difficult.
Unlike the Norse or Avariel runes, kanji characters were far more
complex in appearance and often had multiple characters per word,
making them take more cuts to carve as a result, but they were not
as ambiguous in meaning and thus far more predictable. He would
be glad to have them carved and get it over with.
Tomorrow. Right now it was time for a nap so that his brain stopped
hurting.
Sorcery
Poison
Cleanse
Lungs
Kidneys
Liver
Intestine
Harry kept these seven words firmly in mind as he stepped into the
ritual circle and felt the built in petrification spell take hold.
The purpose of this rune set was simple. To increase the speed at
which poisons and foreign magic was purged from him. The
downside of it was as obvious as it was simple. It would also work
against beneficial magic and medicines, as healing spells were still
foreign to his body and medicines were really nothing more than
targeted poisons. He deemed it a fair exchange.
" Majutsu. "
The knife rose and began carving the two character word into his
right shoulder. It took longer than any of his previous runes because
of the complexity, but that was how it was. Harry ignored the pain as
best he could and sank into an Occlumency trance, focusing on the
meaning and purpose of his newest rune.
When it was done, he felt his magic move into the freshly carved
wound and settle into a tense wait. It wasn't a latent bit of magic
anymore, but something that had been given a purpose that needed
to be fulfilled. Harry smiled. The same had happened with Raido, so
he knew that it was working as it should.
" Doku ."
A single character word this time, carved into his left shoulder. His
magic settled into it just as easily, but the sense of anticipation grew.
" Kiyomemasu. "
A four character word, carved into his upper breastbone. This time,
the magic already held in the previous two runes joined the latent
magic flowing into the new one, taking further direction from it.
Now to tell it where to go.
" Haizō. "
This one was a bit different than the three before it. He had two
lungs, so two sets of the two character rune were carved into his
chest, where the organs in question were.
As soon as it was done, he felt the previously prepared magic
rushing into his lungs.
Harry gasped in wonder, getting a true feel for his lungs for the first
time in his life. A shiver of sensation ran through his first set of runes
and he could feel their magic joining that of the ones he'd just
carved, instinctively knowing that their healing effects were being put
to work to undo what little damage his lungs had accrued over his
short life.
" Jinzō ."
The knife moved to his back and began carving another two set of
two character kanji over his kidneys. His magic filled them the same
as it had his lungs, repairing any damage to them and enhancing
their natural purpose of purifying the blood.
Another important bit of information came back to the forefront of
Harry's mind as this happened.
The lungs did not have pain receptors.
The kidneys did however, as Harry learned when he felt a dull burn
flare up in them as they were magically enhanced beyond normal
capacity.
Knowing that there was no choice but to keep going and hope that it
would pass quickly, he hurried on with the last two parts of the ritual.
" Kimo. "
The knife made quick work of the single character word and the burn
spread to his liver as well.
" Chō. "
The last word was also just one character, which the knife carved
into the soft tissue of his petrified, unmuscled stomach. Predictably,
his entire intestinal tract began burning painfully.
The ritual dropped him unceremoniously into the small pool of blood
that had run down his legs, leaving him groaning pitifully as the burn
continued to slowly worsen.
He hadn't anticipated that little wrinkle, for which he knew that
Charlus and Dorea were going to give him knowingly pointed looks
and Teeny would confine him to bed for the next few days, all the
while wringing her hands nervously at her inability to make the pain
stop and making him feel guilty for worrying her.
Good thing he'd told Robert and Katherine that he'd be spending a
few days with a friend from school. The last thing he wanted was to
deal with them while feeling as if his organs were being microwaved.
Harry spent the next couple of days experiencing the joys of his body
suddenly having much more effective filtration system, complete with
such wonderful features as a burning pain when taking a piss. It
fortunately settled down after the initial change, for which Harry was
grateful. He had been briefly worried that he'd made a huge mistake
and had a lifetime of constant pain to look forward to, but it turned
out that all was well as soon his body was brought down to a lower
toxin threshhold than it had been at before.
He still felt that the end result was worth it, but he wouldn't soon
forget that applying magical changes directly to one's organs hurt .
Once that unpleasant experience was over with, Harry suddenly
found himself with some free time on his hands before the summer
ended. Sure, he still had to do the homework that Hogwarts had
assigned him, but that was a day's work at the most. Two if he was
slow about it.
Zoe had sent him a few texts that were a clear invitation for another
date and later a repeat of their last encounter, but he had reluctantly
begged off due to his desire to finish the ritual. There wasn't anything
like that holding him back now though.
Mind made up, he took out his phone and started writing the text.
Sure, Zoe was technically in a relationship with someone already,
but that was honestly between her and this 'Jeff' character that he
presumed was her on-again off-again boyfriend. Zoe could tell him to
back off at any time, but until then he was going to treat her as if she
was single.
Harry boarded the Hogwarts Express early, as had been his habit for
the past two years. He wanted to stake a claim on an empty
compartment, rather than end up in a situation where he had to sit
with strangers.
He'd gotten to meet up with Zoe an additional two times, both of
which had ended with sex at her place. Apparently her mother often
spent the night with her own current boyfriend, which left Zoe plenty
of alone time for her own activities.
It had quickly become obvious to Harry that he was being used for
his money as much as for his company, as Zoe had picked out a list
of activities that were well out of the sensible budget of a normal
teenager on both days and never mentioned the fact that he always
left behind more money than a few condoms warranted.
He didn't really mind, truth be told. The expenditure for him was far
from huge and it ended in sex. Zoe didn't seem any more interested
in making something more of their arrangement than him, for which
he was thankful, as it would be simply impractical for him to get
involved with a muggle girl at this point. He hadn't expected his spur
of the moment date request back in July to formulate into having a
summer fuck buddy, but he was certainly not complaining.
At the very least, it had reduced the amount of incidents where he
was seized by the sudden urge to bend his foster mother over a
table. That had never stopped being weird, even if he'd gotten kind
of used to it.
Luna walked in some time after him, followed by Ginny who barely
boarded before the train started moving. Luna had some amusing
stories to tell about her snorkack hunting adventure, but Harry was
far more interested in what Ginny had to say for a change.
"There are animated skeletons in the Egyptian tombs?" He asked
with surprised interest.
"Yeah, but some of them were really weird. My brothers said that one
of them had two heads because of some curse or other that was in
there." The redhead explained enthusiastically.
"You didn't see them yourself?" He wondered.
"No." She scowled. "Mum didn't let me see, said that it was 'no place
for a young lady'. Pah!"
Harry's lips twitched into a smile at her irritability. He'd have been
angry too in her position.
"So she didn't let you go into any of the tombs?"
"Only the ones that the curse breakers have already cleared, and
even then only if Bill went with us."
"Your oldest brother? The one that works for Gringotts?" Harry
asked, inwardly wondering why anyone would want to work for the
little bastards.
"That's him." Ginny confirmed.
"What kind of claim do the goblins have on the tombs of humans?"
He asked further, perplexed.
"Errr…" Ginny stammered, stumped by the question.
"It's part of the treaty they have with the ICW." Luna offered dreamily.
"The ICW gave them free access to the resting places of long dead
Egyptian wizards?" Harry asked sceptically.
"The Egyptian tombs hadn't been discovered yet when the treaty
was signed. That specific clause of the treaty gives them ownership
of any place where the magical dead were interred as long as it is
over two thousand years old. Rather short-sighted of them in
retrospect, but that's what you get when you don't protect yourself
from buzzing grox pixies." The blonde girl explained.
"Why do you even know that?" Ginny wondered, ignoring the
mention of yet another potentially imaginary creture with the ease of
practice.
"Oh, I've known about the dangers of grox pixies for years." Luna
explained.
"Not that! Why do you know so much about some treaty between the
goblins and the ICW from hundreds of years ago?"
"Daddy and I were doing research on Egypt to see if we might find
any crumple-horned snorkacks there, but it seems that our original
thinking was correct instead. They prefer colder climes, which must
mean that they have fur."
Harry was a bit confused as to how Luna and her father intended to
find a crumple-horned snorkack if they were still guessing about the
creature's appearance.
"Luna, how can you even be sure that snorkacks have crumpled
horns?" He asked just for the sake of his curiousity.
"Oh, we aren't, but it makes sense." Luna answered cheerfully. "After
all, if they didn't have crumpled horns, then they wouldn't be
crumple-horned snorkacks."
Harry exchanged a glance with Ginny, both of them silently agreeing
that the circular logic was as childish as it was unassailable and
decided to drop the subject.
"Sooo, what else did you see in Egypt?" He asked, shifting the
conversation back to his main interest.
Ginny was more than happy to talk about her holiday, her crush on
the black haired boy still not fully gone, especially since he seemed
to be going in the 'tall, dark and handsome' direction.
As he listened to the redhead describing the magical side of Egypt,
Harry became ever more determined to see it for himself one day.
Unlike the Weasleys however, he wasn't inclined to only see the
goblin approved areas. How hard could it be to slip past the ornery
midgets?
The three of them continued to have a sporadic conversation for
another few hours, intersped with some reading when Ginny brought
up something she'd been skirting around ever since she got on the
train.
"Did you hear about Sirius Black escaping Azkaban?"
"No, but I did read about it." Luna replied, looking up from her upside
down copy of the Quibbler.
"What about it?" Harry asked, deciding not to respond to Luna's little
witticism.
"Aren't you worried?" Ginny asked nervously. "I mean… he was YouKnow-Who's right hand man and responsible for… you know."
"The death of my parents?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow,
inwardly scoffing at the notion.
"Yeah." Ginny said quietly.
"Not really." Harry shrugged. "If he's smart, then he's already left the
country."
He didn't really believe that though. The picture that Charlus and
Dorea had painted of Sirius Black was of a man that thought with his
heart rather than his head and that was assuming that he was still
sane, which was far from guaranteed. The only mystery were the
man's goals.
The train slowed and jerked to a stop at that point, halting the
conversation in the process.
"Why are we stopping?" Ginny asked, knowing that they couldn't
possibly be at their destination yet. The Express arrived at Hogwarts
in the evening and it was still afternoon. A dark and stormy
afternoon, but afternoon nonetheless.
Harry knew this just as well as her and went to look out the window
in an attempt to divine the cause of their stop.
"It's getting cold." Luna said quietly, her breath misting.
Harry had noticed that too, but he was far more worried about
something else. His constant practice with wandless magic had
given him a sensitivity towards ambient magic that he was quite sure
most people didn't have. Whatever was causing the temperature to
plummet was definitely not natural, but it didn't feel like any magic
he'd ever sensed either.
He had scoffed at the notion of magic being divided between Dark
and Light ever since the first time he'd heard that there was a class
called Defense Against the Dark Arts. It seemed far too much like
some idiot's justification for villifying magic they didn't like rather than
anything that had a basis in reality. The only way he could describe
how this unnatural cold felt however, was capital-D Dark .
"There's something moving out there." He said, noticing the dark
shapes flitting through the sky, apparently unbothered by the rain
and the wind.
"It's the dementors." Luna said faintly, now hugging her legs to her
chest.
"But the dementors aren't supposed to leave Azkaban." Ginny
protested.
"Nobody is supposed to escape Azkaban either." Luna argued, a
note of distress in her tone that her voice didn't usually carry.
"They've boarded the train." Harry interjected grimly, reaching for his
wand. He wasn't sure what good it would do in this situation, but it
was better than cowering helplessly in a corner.
"How can you tell?" Ginny asked fearfully.
That was a good question that Harry didn't really have an answer for.
He hadn't seen them do it, but the sense of Dark felt much closer
now and had split off into several distinct blobs.
He was not liking this whatsoever. The cold was more than just a
drop of temperature, it felt as if the very warmth of the world was
being leeched away, bringing with it a powerful but unnatural fear
and depression. His grip tightened around his wand. He'd never
much cared for it as anything other than a crutch until he could easily
use magic without it, but right now the echo of a phoenix's magic
within the feather it held was comforting.
The closest dementor finally reached their compartment, bringing
with it the cold and the Dark. It was close enough now to begin
affecting their minds much more strongly.
Luna and Ginny both had the misfortune of having some pretty bad
memories, Ginny from last year and Luna from the day that she saw
her mother die. Both of them had already retreated as far into the
compartment as was physically possible and buried their heads into
their knees in a vain attempt to block out the memories that came
flooding back to the forefront of their minds, some of which they'd
blocked out.
Harry had also backed up gainst the window, but was shakily aiming
his wand towards the door, somehow knowing that the thing outside
it wasn't intending to just pass by as it had all the other
compartments.
He was proven right as it slowly pulled open the door and began to
glide in.
Harry wasn't spared the misery and memory inducing effects of the
dementor any more than the girls, but he did have the advantage of
having come to terms with them already. Yes, the memory of his
mother's murder was pretty terrible, but he'd seen it a year ago
already and put it behind him. He would have liked to have parents,
but he'd stopped pining for them a long time ago. Similarly, the
memories of his life with the Dursleys and in the orpahange were far
from pleasant, but not debilitatingly horrible even with the dementor
augmenting them.
He was no keener to have the soul sucking creature coming any
closer to him than any other sane person though and sent a powerful
gout of flame at it.
The fire guttered out before it could hit the dementor, the draining
effect of its aura snuffing out the magic behind it harmlessly.
Starting to get a little desperate to stop the thing from advancing,
Harry sent a cutting curse at it. He saw it hit, but there was no effect.
It was like his spell had simply vanished, its cutting edge without
meaning.
The dementor was well into the compartment by now and Harry was
starting to panic. He didn't know any spells that were guaranteed to
be useful and he probably couldn't muster the focus necessary even
if he did, so he resorted to desperate measures. That being that
when in doubt, explosions were usually a solution.
He cast the most powerful blasting curse that he could manage,
knowing it was a terrible idea even as he did it. The few feet of
distance between him and the dementor was not even close to the
recommended minimum for casting any kind of explosive spell. If it
worked, it was entirely likely to kill everything in the compartment
except the dementor itself.
The spell rocketed out of his wand, the magic frayed and barely
formed due to his lack of focus, but powerful all the same.
The dementor was struck center mass, but there was no explosion.
The only thing Harry felt was his magic vanishing into the depthless
sense of Dark exuded by the creature in the same way as his
previous spells, as well as the warmth of the world and the
happiness in peoples minds.
Then it was on top of him, its cadaverous fingers griping his head
and turning it upwards into the shadows of the hood.
Harry once again heard the screaming of his mother, but it seemed
to come from a great distance. His magic felt as if it was freezing,
however little sense that made. The runes scattered across his body,
where magic was infused into flesh, became so cold that the skin
turned blue in seconds. The four organs that he'd runically enhanced
over the summer were similarly affected, though much more
severely.
But none of that mattered when the Dark was so close.
Albus Dumbledore looked on as Poppy finished working on his most
important student, feeling deeply concerned.
It hadn't escaped his notice that Harry was incongruously large for
his age. A growth spurt was nothing odd, but the one that Harry was
having stretched credulity. Neither James nor Lily had been
exceptonally tall people after all, so their son's current size was quite
unusual.
He'd been hoping for an excuse to give Harry a thorough medical
examination for a while, but this wasn't what he'd had in mind. The
strange situation with the owls would have sufficed. Harry nearly
losing his soul to a dementor was something he'd have preferred to
avoid, convenient though it was as far as excuses went. He had
barely been able to keep the information from reaching the ears of
the Ministry. The last thing anyone needed right now was for
Cornelius to come blustering in and making a bigger mess of things.
It was a good thing that Remus had been nearby to drive the
dementor away.
"How is he doing, Poppy?" He asked when the Hogwarts matron
approached him.
"Still unconscious but stable." She said with a tired sigh. "It's almost
like the dementor was trying to freeze him solid. If his lungs, liver,
kidneys and intestines had gotten any colder, they would have
formed ice crystals and killed him. It was a near thing as it was, my
spells didn't work as well as they should, but his body fortunately
seemed to recover on its own. I've never seen the like of it, but I've
never heard of anyone coming so close to losing their soul and
surviving either."
"Will there be any permanent consequences to young Harry?"
"I couldn't say." Poppy replied with a frown. "The organs I mentioned
are still saturated with his magic and operating at a much higher
level than normal. He also has a similar but less pronounced effect
across the rest of his body."
"Thank you, Poppy." The old wizard said with a smile. "When do you
think he will wake up? I need to speak to him."
"He needs rest, Headmaster." Poppy said with disapproval.
"It will not take long." Dumbledore assured her.
Harry was mildly surprised when he opened his eyes. Given what his
last few memories were, he should be dead. Oddly enough, there
was absolutely no emotion attached to his near death experience.
He felt the same as if he'd just realized that water was wet.
This must be the Hogwarts Infirmary. He'd never been here before,
but only a place of healing could be so obnoxiously white. He'd
never understood the reasoning behind that. I don't think I like it
much.
"Good evening, Harry." Came the voice of Dumbledore from nearby.
"Is it?" Harry wondered.
"I suppose it could have been better." The old wizard conceded.
"Dementors do tend to ruin one's day."
"There was so much Dark." Harry murmured, mostly to himself.
"I am sorry that you had to go through that, Harry." Dumbledore
sighed regretfully.
Harry wasn't really upset about it. He wasn't sure if that was because
of the strangely trance-like state he was currently in, or because he'd
actually found the Dark strangely comforting in his last moments of
consciousness. When the biting cold and grotesque appearance of
the dementor had ceased to matter, it had been beautiful in its own
way. He had been ready to sink into it and let it have him forever.
"Minister Fudge insisted on a dementor presence despite my
objections." The old man went on, oblivious to Harry's thoughts.
"To search for Sirius Black." The much younger wizard said with
certainty.
"Yes."
"They won't find him." If he'd slipped past them in Azkaban, then he
would certainly have little trouble doing it in the open.
"I agree, but the Ministry unfortunately does not."
"Of course it doesn't, it wouldn't be the government if it wasn't both
stupid and incompetent." Harry said, finally starting to shake off the
strange lethargy.
"That is a very cynical viewpoint for someone so young."
Dumbledore commented.
"I've found that I prefer to be cynical and occasionally wrong than
idealistic and constantly disappointed." Harry retorted, sitting up on
the bed and grabbing his wand from the nearby table. "What
happened after I passed out?"
"Professor Lupin arrived just in time to drive off the dementor."
"Lupin?" Harry asked sharply, recognizing the name of one of his
parents supposed friends.
"Am I to take it that you know of him already?" Dumbledore asked
shrewdly.
"I've heard of him." Harry said with a shrug, inwardly cursing his own
reaction. There was no need to inform the old meddler what he knew
and what he didn't.
"The dementor affected you most severely, my boy. I don't suppose
you know why?" Dumbledore asked, changing the subject when he
saw that Harry had no intention of talking about it. He didn't want to
come off as overly pushy and alienate him.
Harry remembered the way that his runes had burned with cold fire
in the dementor's presence. As far as he understood it, a wizard's
magic was not physically part of their body, so it was no doubt
having magic bound to so closely his body that had caused the
effect.
Not that he was going to volunteer that information.
"I don't know." He lied. "Frankly, I'm more interested in why it
attacked me specifically."
Dumbledore wasn't entirely convinced that he wasn't being lied to.
The strange way that the boy's magic was infused into his body and
some of his organs did not look like anything he'd ever seen before,
nor did it look natural. A wizard's magic simply did not work that way
normally.
More to the point, Harry's body appeared to be… too old. It was
something of a sketchy assessment since there were no spells that
determined the age of a person, but Madam Pomfrey's examination
as well as the one he'd performed before the boy had woken up
pointed to a level of maturity of someone in their mid teens.
There was an off chance that it had somehow occured naturally, but
it was far more likely to be the result of something that Harry had
done to himself.
He was terribly curious about it, but once again decided not to push.
He needed Harry to trust him, and he'd learned a long time ago that
asking uncomfortable questions did not inspire trust.
"I see. Should you should ever discover the cause, I would
appreciate it if you would indulge an old man's curiosity. It is not
often that I encounter something new."
That would hopefully let Harry know that he did not intend to judge
and could possibly even help. If the boy was half as smart as he
suspected, then he would catch the implication. It was crucial that
the boy see him as a mentor, and for that to happen, Dumbledore
had to act like one.
"Of course, sir." Harry lied with a smile, swinging his legs out of the
bed. It hadn't escaped his notice that Dumbledore had neglected to
answer his implied question about why the dementor had attacked
him.
"Madam Pomfrey will be most upset if you leave the infirmary without
her permission." The old wizard said, seeing that the boy was intent
on leaving.
"That's too bad, but I feel fine and I'm not staying in bed just to make
her feel better."
"It is unfortunate that I still need to speak to Poppy about
something." Dumbledore said, also getting on his feet, completely
unphased by the boy's surly attitude. He didn't much like being a
patient either. "I hope that you will not use this opportunity to sneak
to Ravenclaw tower while her attention is elsewhere."
Harry raised an eyebrow as the elderly wizard walked off towards the
healer's office and then shrugged. If Dumbledore wanted to give him
a distraction while he escaped, then that was fine with him.
"Harry!"
The shout greeted him almost as soon as he entered the Ravenclaw
common room, attracting the attention of several of the upper years
as well.
Ginny all but smashed into him in her eagerness to give him a hug,
which Harry returned awkwardly for a moment before gently pushing
her away.
"Hello Harry." Luna greeted much more calmly, though it was
obvious to anyone who knew her that she was relieved to see him.
"Hi."
"What happened to you?" Ginny all but demanded. "The dementors
were pretty hard on me and Luna, but you looked like you'd frozen to
death! They had to portkey you to the infirmary."
Harry's eyebrows went up at that. He hadn't known that bit.
"Nearly having your soul sucked out is apparently bad for your
health." He joked.
"No doubt." Luna agreed. "Would you be willing to speak about your
near-soulless experience in an interview with the Quibbler?"
"That's not funny." Ginny scolded, glaring at them both.
"Err… sure, Luna. We can do it tomorrow." Harry offered, quirking a
smile at Ginny's even more pronounced scowl.
He couldn't help but find the whole thing a bit ridiculous. Both Luna
and Ginny were a bit on the petite side, which meant that he now
towered over them by a considerable margin. Even if he was only a
year older than them, it was sometimes hard not to feel like he was
hanging around kids that were three or four years younger than him,
especially in light of the things he'd been up to during the summer.
"Alright there, Harry?"
The question was accompanied by a hand on his shoulder and he
turned to look at the year's Head Girl, Penelope Clearwater. He
noted with some shock that the girl who had occasionally come to
talk to him back in first year was now actually a shade shorter than
him. Granted, Penelope was not prodigiously tall by any stretch, but
it was still a bit of a surprise to find himself looking down at someone
that had been nearly two feet taller than him only a couple of years
ago.
"Yeah, I'm fine." He replied after a moment, giving the girl a smile. It
was much easier to be confident around people when you weren't
looking up at them.
"Good." Penelope said with a nod, returning his smile. "Try to stay
away from the dementors in the future, yeah?"
"I'll try, I'd certainly prefer to kiss girls than dementors." Harry joked.
The Head Girl gave a short laugh, accompanied by a small blush at
what could be taken as flirting if you squinted.
"Even I 'd rather get kissed by a girl than a dementor." She joked
back, inwardly very pleased at how different he was from the antisocial boy that he'd been in his first year. She'd always felt that Harry
was trying too hard to isolate himself back then and it was gratifying
to see that he'd loosened up a bit. She had no idea what had caused
him to be so prickly with people when he'd started Hogwarts and she
wasn't going to ask, but she did like to think that she'd helped him
move past it.
"I can kiss you if you want." Luna offered out of the blue.
The joking mood screeched to a halt at Luna's words, everyone
trying to figure out if she was serious or not.
"Is she joking or not? I can't tell." Penelope eventually asked, giving
up on figuring it out.
"No idea, I can never tell either." Harry shrugged, being less affected
due to experience.
"I'm as serious as a crumple-horned snorkack." Luna said firmly.
Which tells us nothing. Harry thought wryly, giving Penelope another
shrug when she looked to him for clarification.
"Right." The Head Girl said after a moment, deciding to just ignore
the small blonde's strangeness. "You three had better head off to
bed, it's past your usual curfew already."
Penny had felt the assessing gazes of several other girls on her ever
since Harry's appearance in the common room. It wasn't the first
time that this had happened. Curious students had seen her talking
to him before and had wanted to know what he was like since the
boy tended to avoid social contact.
It felt a bit different this time though.
"So, Penny….." Opened up Bryanna Torres, a dark haired, blue eyed
seventh year whose slightly olive skin tone betrayed a hint of
medditeranean ancestry a few generations back. "….We saw you
talking to Potter."
"Yeah, so?" Penny returned cautiously.
She and Bryanna had never really gotten along too well, the other
girl possessing a cunning and ambition that should have by all rights
landed her in Slytherin, as well as a beauty that drew many a boy's
attention, whereas Penny was fairly plain and straightforward. Not
that they were enemies or anything like that, but they hadn't really
interacted since third year, when Bryanna had started moving in
completely different social circles.
"He's looking pretty good." The other girl noted, too casually to be
real.
And with that sentence Penny realized what Bryanna was aiming at.
It wouldn't be the first time that an ambitious girl from a Common
House like Bryanna had targeted the younger Heir of a Noble House
in an attempt to increase her own status.
It could theoretically happen the other way around as well, but it was
much less likely. Witches, even those not of main Noble lines, were
guarded far more carefully against that sort of thing. That had taken
a while for Penny to wrap her mind around, being a muggleborn as
she was. The Wizarding World's only definition for rape was a violent
and/or magically compelled man-on-woman assault, which seemed
especially strange to her with an equalizer like magic being present.
Anyone proposing the idea of statutory rape to magicals received
only baffled looks, as if the mere concept was lunacy. Even slipping
someone love or lust potions was a legal grey area.
It was frankly astonishing that it happened as little as it did, though
Penny knew that might simply be her ignorance on the subject.
The reason for Bryanna's sudden interest in Harry was unlikely to be
his looks, but rather his money and status. His youth would only
make him a more tempting target because it would leave him
vulnerable. Heirs of Noble Houses weren't normally subjected to this
kind of thing because they had parents who could easily ruin a girl's
family and future in the Wizarding World for attempting to install
herself as the future Lady of a Noble House in such a manner.
Harry had no parents to protect him however.
"He's only thirteen, Bryanna." She said disapprovingly in an attempt
to get the other girl to back off.
"Funny, he doesn't look thirteen." Bryanna countered with a smirk,
abandoning subtlety since it was obvious that her intentions had
been guessed.
Penny had noticed that, it was in all honesty hard not to, but it didn't
change the fact that Harry Potter was thirteen and thus entirely too
young to be dealing with the advances of a girl four years his senior.
The problem was that she couldn't even go to anyone about this.
Professor Flitwick was a great teacher, but he was part goblin and
had certain goblin sensibilities. A refusal to meddle in other people's
issues being one of them.
Headmaster Dumbledore would just wave it off like he waved off
everything. For all the respect that Penny had for the aged wizard,
he tended to be extremely hands off. Snape was a good example.
McGonagall would simply refer her to Dumbledore.
Even if she could have gone to anyone about it, it would make her a
lot of enemies in Ravenclaw that could make her life very difficult for
the rest of the year.
What a mess. She'd just have to warn Harry and hope for the best,
which Bryanna was probably expecting her to do anyway. Hopefully
her ambitious fellow Ravenclaw was overestimating her own appeal.
Bryanna spent another twenty minutes attempting to get information
on Harry out of her, but Penny was for once glad to be fairly clueless.
The green-eyed boy was not exactly liberal with information on
himself, so she had little to go on. It wouldn't stop them of course,
but it wasn't going to be as easy as they'd hoped.
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