章節 58: Chapter 54: Raccoon boy
The next few days flew by Harry as if they were farts in the wind. After having given Dumbledore the information, he obviously couldn't use the Room of Requirement, which is where he'd been spending most of his time in his second year at Hogwarts. However, his magical sense was developed enough that he could train it just by walking around the magical castle and tasting the different flavours present, and he had started to outgrow the duelling dummy recently anyway, so he wasn't too mad about it.
The room would be there again next year, if it was under surveillance he could just pretend that he'd found it for the first time. It would suck a bit for Tonks, whom he'd now committed to helping, but she would have access for the entirety of next year.
Overall, Harry found himself, despite his sessions with James and Filius, with more free time than ever. In a way, this served as a vacation for him, and having decided to keep this relaxation going until the end of the year, he'd started studying for the exams early. If he had the material down pat already now, a few months before the exams, then there would be no need to study then, and he could simply focus on preparing for the duelling tournament, which Flitwick was helpful enough to sign him up for.
It only took him a few days, at the pace that he usually studied, to finish the theoretical load for Astronomy, Herbology, and History of Magic. The classes really were intended for children, and the rest of the year would just serve as revision. Charms and Arithmancy were difficult enough that he preferred moving with the rest of the class, while DADA often consisted of fun exercises with a variety of creatures and scenarios which he couldn't really read ahead for since the theoretical knowledge was useless without the practical experience. Transfiguration was chugging along as always, with him outperforming everyone but occasionally Cedric and McGonagall looking disapprovingly at his comparable lack of effort in the subject. They both knew that he could advance out of the year if he really tried.
Actually, thinking about it, Harry could conjure two very realistic and pissed-off hornets right now, and would probably be able to manage a swarm by the end of the year exams. Considering that conjuration of any kind was a skill learnt in the fifth year, that might just be enough to clinch an advancement. However, Harry really wanted to focus on duelling this summer, so he didn't know if he wanted to bother. There were a bunch of wandless tricks he could practise that would help him in the tournament, whereas any wand-magic would require him to go to a magical settlement or practice under supervision.
Although, hadn't there been wands in the trunk he'd ended up taking out of the room of lost things? Yeah, there had been, although the question if the thing would even work for him was still up in the air.
He wasn't feeling too pressured to go check anytime soon. He'd wanted the money to buy stuff in Diagon Alley and since he wasn't leaving school for another three months the whole point was sort of moot.
"You look like your thoughts are on another continent again," Penny commented as she walked up to him where he was leaning against the wall next to a suit of armour at the entrance to their little potions laboratory. Although it was definitely mostly Penny's. "Do mind that you book the return portkey."
"How were second-year Charms?" Harry asked instead of retorting with a witticism.
Penny blew a raspberry at him. "What will you be working on today?" she asked.
"I was thinking about working on the girding potion and the strengthening potion. I should have enough time to brew both. They're the most likely to come up on the exam, and I would like to experience how it feels to have super strength or super endurance."
"Do you have enough ingredients?" Penny asked doubtfully.
"Slughorn lets me nick whatever I want, especially since I'm set to pass my advanced classes with flying colours," Harry explained. "I wanted to ask you actually, if maybe you could brew more ageing potion and some more wit-sharpening tonics for me. Maybe a language tonic as well if you have time."
"Any specific music wishes, maybe a massage. What am I? Your personal potioneer?" Penny groused.
"Come on, I help you as well, you know. I get you the ingredients for your experiments and I help with your Charms and Transfigurations when you're struggling," Harry insisted. "The wit-sharpening potion is so useful for study sessions and I recently used up last year's batch, you can't not help me make some."
"And the ageing potion, I remember you having several vials left after France?" Penny asked doubtfully.
Harry blushed a bit, thinking about the fate that those vials in particular had experienced, and had helped him experience. "Come on, it's nice being treated like an adult every now and again. I used them up in the summer."
"I'm not going to help you become an alcoholic," Penny refused.
"I don't use it to drink," Harry said with a roll of his eyes.
"You better not, the last time we…" she trailed off with a far-away look on her face before shaking her head. "Anyway, it's not right."
"I can take a vow that I haven't used the ageing potion simply for its access to alcohol," Harry said with a roll of his eyes.
"Alright then, I'll make the stuff for you," Penny grumbled, "but not today. I specifically planned on working on the shrinking solution."
"You've been making a lot of third-year potions recently, is someone planning on trying to follow the footsteps of their much more attractive and charismatic older brother figure?" Harry teased, causing Penny to mime puking.
"Harry, no offence, but if you were my brother I'd poison your breakfast."
"Well, if you were my sister, I'd eat it," Harry responded and they both chuckled. "Thanks, Penns, means a lot to me. I'd brew them myself, but it's just a waste of time when you compare our results. If you need help with the advancement, just tell me and I'll help you out. I'm not nearly good enough at Potions to offer insights, but I know a bit about how to set up a good study schedule and what the requirements for advancement are," he offered, more seriously.
"Thanks, but I don't really need help with Potions," Penny said with a sigh. "Maybe just keep my other grades up. I doubt they'll let me take the test if I'm failing other subjects."
"I have a spell that would get you an O+ in charms if you showed it off in your OWLs, as long as the rest of your work isn't too atrocious," Harry offered, getting an odd look from his friend.
"Harry, I don't have the time to learn a spell that's so difficult it would get me an O+ on my OWLs. That's in three years."
"It's actually not that hard," Harry said with a shrug.
Penny put a palm to her face and looked at the ceiling for guidance. "What's the spell?" she asked.
"It's the patronus, the only spell that will protect you from dementors and some other very dark creatures. It's Light Magic, which means it requires a specific state of mind to cast. This is where the difficulty lies. It's why you would have just as many chances casting it as an older you would. It's all about being able to bring yourself into a state of happiness which can serve as fuel for the spell," Harry explained.
"Can you show me?" Penny asked curiously, lighting up at the mention of Light Magic. It was probably something used by the main characters in wizarding children's tales. Unfortunately in reality the art was a bit more useless, filled with situational spells for which one usually wouldn't be able to bring up the requisite emotions in the heat of battle. Although, if someone could cast a Patronus in the middle of a swarm of dementors, they could also probably cast a love shield during a fight.
"Sure," Harry agreed, thinking that even if he only managed a powerful shield, it was still something to be proud of. Although, he felt lighter than ever today and the feeling of happiness that was requisite for the spell was easier to bring up than ever. He brought up his wand and cast the spell, "expecto patronum."
A white mist emerged, as always, before slowly thickening into a solid shield, from which sprang, for the first time, an actual animal form. A racoon jumped from the shield and frolicked around the room in the air, doing twirls and jumps, before landing next to the window looking out at Hogwarts's grounds, and dissipating into bright white-blue motes of light.
"That's so cute," Penny crooned. "It was a racoon, right?" she asked the stricken Harry, who stared aghast at the form that his guardian animal had taken. He wasn't mad, per se. But why had the original Harry Potter gotten a majestic stag, and he had gotten a raccoon? An animal mostly known for searching through the trash of unsuspecting humans.
"Yeah," he muttered. "It was a racoon."
"Will mine also be a raccoon?" Penny asked curiously.
"The animal changes depending on the person, it's a bit like the animagus form."
"Are the two the same?" she asked, causing Harry to thoughtfully tap at his chin.
"I don't quite know honestly. It would make sense, right?" he wondered, before shaking his head. "Anyway, that doesn't really matter. Would you be interested in learning it at some point? It's the best I can offer right now."
Penny shook her head. "Let's do it after I successfully advanced. I want to put all my focus into potions at the moment."
"That's the spirit," Harry cheered her on, and they got to brewing.
It was in the usual calm and copacetic fashion that they shared the room, their cauldrons bubbling and their ingredients disappearing at an alarming rate. Harry, for once, was not failing completely, as the strengthening potion had a lot of the steps that he'd already needed for the potions of last year. What he did notice, with his newly developed magical sense, was the way that he and Penny differed in their potion-making. Penny's magic was tranquilly interacting with the growing ball of yarn that was her cauldron, whereas Harry's magic ebbed and flowed, sometimes adding too much, sometimes too little. It destabilised the overall process, but not to the point of catastrophic failure.
At this point quite fed up with the subject, Harry wasn't too excited to have potentially found the reason for his persistent failure. However, it was nice to know at least where the issue might lie. Perhaps he would have a few sessions in which he experimented with this particular part of potion-making, which he'd never found mentioned in any book.
Not today, though. Today he had to send a letter to a certain reporter, who with her animagus form would hopefully be able to sneak her way into Hogwarts.
He would perhaps have been more willing to accept the snide looks that he sometimes got from the other Hogwarts students, particularly those of a particular blood type, so to say, if the duelling tournament he was planning on winning wouldn't have put him in the spotlight anyway. Since he wanted to stay in the magical world and continue learning and working, a good national reputation was better for his future career than a bad one.
章節 59: Chapter 55: The calm after and before the storm
Walking up the stairs to the owlery, as cracked and covered with mouse bones as they were, Harry wondered about what Dumbledore had done with the information he'd provided him. He daydreamed that the man had already gotten rid of all the Horcruxes, went to Albania, and banished the shade hopefully wandering around there somewhere. Of course, the biggest problem would be if Neville was also a Horcrux. James, for all that he was apparently willing to leave his adopted son to pursue teaching, probably wouldn't be too amused at Albus attempting to cast a killing curse at the boy.
Harry had posited all that he knew, and what he thought might be the case with all the changes to Albus, it depended on him what to do with it. It was all finally out of his hands. The ring in the shack, the diadem at Hogwarts, the cup in Gringotts, the diary at the Malfoys, the locket in Grimmauld Place, the scar on Neville's head and the ghost running around in Albania.
He finished his ascension to the owlery and glanced at the only other student present.
Harley looked at him from where she was tying a letter to the foot of a large black owl.
Harry simply nodded at her and started his search for his own owl. "How do you do?" he greeted automatically, not expecting to get anything but a grunt for an answer.
"Classes are fun," Harley mumbled, before throwing the question back at him. "You?"
Harry pepped up. Trying to remember when had been the last time that someone had asked him how he was doing. The question really was one that was only generally posed to strangers so in an odd way. None of the people that actually mattered would usually elicit the answer. Although, to be fair, with friends you could air your grievances, without being asked to do so.
"You know what, I'm actually doing pretty great!" Harry replied enthusiastically. "How's your dad? I met him briefly at the ministry once," he explained.
Harley pet her owl, saying goodbye, as it flew off, before turning to him with a playful smile. "I know. He mentioned you. Said that some kids lived in the library so much that they started treating classes as something to work ahead in. He told me to look at how you studied and to do the opposite, so I wouldn't become a prefect."
Harry huffed. "Considering his rank in the department I hardly think he has ground to stand on. You have to be a real job-ner to get that many promotions."
The girl cracked up. "Job-nerd, I'll have to tell him that."
"Also," Harry added, "being a prefect is the last thing I want. It would seriously eat up into my study time," he explained gleefully. "People bother you about Longbottom, still?" he asked, more seriously, causing the smile to fly off Harley's face.
"Less and less, with time. You set a bit of a statement at the sorting, you know. Maybe I should have thanked you instead of telling you to bugger off," she sighed. "I wish I'd been brave enough to do it. My dad would have loved it, but I guess I'm not brave enough for that, or for Gryffindor."
"You know, the more I hear about your dad, the less seriously I can take him, which is ironic because that's-"
"literally his name!" Harley interjected with a pained grimace. "Please not you too, I thought I escaped hearing that joke every day of my life when I came to Hogwarts."
"Tough crowd," Harry muttered, a comfortable silence entering the owlery. One usually only found between friends. Harry was impressed, quite frankly. Harley was more mature than she'd let on in previous interactions.
"You know, you're not who I expected you to be," Harley eventually said.
"Did me breaking that guy's nose really ruin my image that much?"
The first-year shook her head. "It didn't in my eyes, but the other Hufflepuffs… A lot of people have told me about you, almost as many as have asked me about my brot- Neville," Harley quickly corrected herself.
"People are talking about me?" Harry wondered, he hadn't thought he interacted with nearly enough people for any significant amount of them to have anything to say. "What are they saying?"
"I'm not some sort of rumour regurgitator."
"I'll pay you," Harry offered, drawing a stunned look.
"With what exactly?" she asked.
"I'll show you something cool," he offered, drawing a look of disgust.
"I don't want to see your penis," Harley said, angrily, causing Harry to sputter.
"What?!" he shouted with wide eyes, "I meant a spell!" he tried to defend himself.
Harley twirled a strand of her wavy black hair in her fingers and smiled at him beatifically. Harry realised he'd just been pranked. "Ah, I see. You're funny, you know that," he complimented as his heart rate dropped down to a normal level again. He didn't want to know what James would do to him if Harley had actually thought that, and told the man.
"Which spell?" Harley asked curiously, causing the boy to cross his arms.
"I have several, the hotter the tea, the cooler of a spell that you get," he said, causing the girl to groan.
"Ah, you ass. My curiosity at what you consider impressive is stronger than my desire to see the actual spell," she groaned, before squaring up. "Fine, I'll tell you what I've heard," she conceded. "How big is your ego for you to even want to hear," she muttered in an accusatory tone.
Harry waved her on, telling her to get on with it.
"Well, we already talked about my dad. The next time I heard about you was from that article, about you only getting to advance in classes because the Hogwarts staff was political. Well, he said with who your mother was that it wasn't a surprise you would advance and that the ministry would hate it. He called Crouch an old muppet with more prejudices than brain cells, which he does a lot anyway, but don't tell anyone I said that" she hastily added. "James said you'd make a good auror. I don't see it," she said, looking his skinny form up and down.
Harry knew he was going to hit a growth spurt soon, he better, but a tick-mark still developed on his forehead.
"He always seems hurt when he talks about you. Or wistful. Or angry," Harley added. "Why?" she asked.
"He tried to date my mom when he was in school. It didn't work out, and then she died in the war," Harry explained briefly.
"Sorry," Harley whispered with a pained look in her eyes. "My mum's dead too," she eventually said.
"War?"
"Yeah."
"Fuck Voldemort, may he rot in hell and have his balls tortured forever, if he even has any," Harry said crassly, causing Harley to jump in fright at his mention of the name.
"Don't say that," she hissed, looking around as if there was someone potentially listening in.
Harry's magical sense wasn't that good at sensing people yet, even if it was a skill he was quickly developing, but he was fairly sure there was nobody present. "Any other rumours? Not a lot you're providing might have to show you a Lumos," he taunted to get the conversation back on track.
Harley huffed and put her hand on her hip. "Well, the professors love you. Flitwick constantly has to bite his tongue to not brag about you and I'm pretty sure Sprout has a picture of you on her nightstand. The students…" she trailed off.
Harry meanwhile was sincerely hoping that Sprout did not have a picture of him on her nightstand. It was a disturbing thought.
"The muggle-borns want to be you, the half-bloods admire you, and the pure-bloods are terrified. They express it through criticism. But it's clear they're afraid. Afraid that their agenda will be shown as a sham. The fact that only Neville, a pure-blood, or his mother, a pure blood, were able to stop You-Know-Who, a pure-blood, almost strengthened their beliefs somewhat," she explained.
Harry had to really bite his tongue there, to not blurt out that Voldemort was a half-blood son of a muggle and a squib and that his father smelled of elderberries.
"I'm showing them that the only reason any wizard reaches the heights that Dumbledore did, might have been their effort, instead of their blood. It makes their failure to be anyone of particular importance in terms of magical ability a personal failure, rather than something decreed by a higher deity. They hate me because I am showing them that their lack of ability is their own fault. And by god, do they lack in ability," Harry said with a sigh, not mentioning the fact that while Voldemort had been a champion of the pure-blood cause, killing and terrorising countless blood-traitors and muggle-borns. Well, Harry Evans, with his past, was definitely not going to go against a murderous rampage against anyone but the established pure-blood regime.
Nobody was thinking that far yet, hopefully. Harry was just a student, not a dark lord in the making. If anyone thought that, they might decide to eliminate him before he could defend himself. Perhaps his patronus would convince everyone in the other direction. The general consensus he'd read about people who could use the Light Arts was that they were too soft to do anything truly bad.
Which made sense. Practising the Light Arts was basically an exercise in making positive emotions more readily available in one's mind. It was for the same reason that dark arts practitioners usually ended up as sadistic monsters. It took a strong mind to practise hateful magic and not become a hateful person.
"If you're waiting for more, that's it, you egomaniac," Harley said, interrupting his thoughts.
"Thanks for the deets, babe," Harry said automatically, before cringing and his word choice.
"For your information, after today, I think you're a weirdo," Harley said bluntly.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Harry mumbled. "Let me show you the spell now. I need practice anyway." He pulled out his wand, carefully not aiming it anywhere near the tense girl's direction, before bringing up the requisite happiness. Chatting away on a tower with a beautiful view. It was nice, wasn't it? The only thing missing was a glass of wine and a cheese platter.
"Expecto patronum," he cast to the side, a bright ghostly raccoon immediately ejecting itself out of his wand and starting to swim around in the air. No really, it was doing the back-stroke. Not wanting to exhaust himself too much, Harry dissipated the spell and went for the door.
"It was nice meeting you," he said to the stunned girl. "I think it's the first time we talked long enough to justify saying that," he said, before opening the door and starting to make his way down the stairs.
-/-
Harry sidestepped a blisteringly fast disarming jinx and wordlessly fired off his own, with minimal wand movement. Flitwick simply batted the red beam back at him at double the speed, causing the student to have to dodge again. This game continued for a few more exchanges, before a deflection came right at the middle of Harry's torso, causing him to have to throw himself to the ground to dodge.
This uncoordinated scramble meant that it was his loss. No real duellist would lose against someone struggling around on the ground. Harry lay there panting, as he heard the gentle taps of Flitwick coming over.
"Your disarming jinx has improved once again," the man remarked. "Quite remarkable speed. If you continue like this you might even get it up to adult duelling standards before the tournament."
"What's that standard?" Harry asked curiously as he sat up and straightened his back, essentially coming eye to eye with his short mentor.
"No wand movement, execution in under half a second. Speed?" Filius twirled his moustache. "About the same speed that I'm sending them back at you."
"That's still double," Harry grimaced. "We've been focusing on just one spell though, professor. But with it being the most commonly used one, aren't I just walking into the trap of learning the one thing everyone will be able to deflect?" he asked.
"I've been thinking about a good and reusable strategy that I can impart to improve your chances of passing at least the preliminaries. Once you master that, we'll look further, but it's always better to start with the basics. Will you complain once you realise that a big part of being a professional duellist is shaving off milliseconds of your best spells, rather than learning more of them?" he asked.
Harry just shook his head. "Filius, I haven't even participated in a duelling tournament yet. Currently, you have my unconditional trust."
"Good," the professor nodded, seemingly satisfied. "Now, the simple answer is, just because you know which spell is coming, doesn't mean you're capable of deflecting it. Let's say I wanted to deflect a disarming jinx sent at me by… Grindelwald, let's say. Do you think I would be capable of doing so?"
Harry scratched at his chin. "Well, as a professional duellist deflecting disarming jinxes seems to be a bit of a speciality. So I'd say, yes, but with great difficulty."
"Yes, but with great difficulty indeed. The spell would likely come with such power behind it that deflecting it would cause my wand arm to be blown askew, opening me up completely for the follow-up spell. Let this be a lesson. Spell deflection only works between people either on your level or one stage above it. If they're on an entirely different planet, just forget about it." Filius cautioned
"I'm afraid I don't understand. What strategy?" Harry asked, a bit frustrated. What was the duellist getting at?
"patience, I'll get to it later. Regardless, I've started up a correspondence with some old acquaintances who have stayed in the field, rather than leaving it as I did. I asked them about the level we are to expect in the U17 circuit. From them, I learned that spell deflection was uncommon and that those who used it only knew how to do so for a select few spells. Disregarding naturally some of the prodigies who've been trained by their families since they could walk and who will likely win the whole thing in the end. Anyway, a disarming jinx at the adult circuit level is at the adult circuit level because those beneath it can't replicate it. If you manage to reach such heights, then you can mostly barrage the unprepared into submission. Those whose eyes will gleam at your seeming reliance on the spell and who know spell deflection will try to deflect it, only to find that your skill at the jinx is higher than their skill in deflecting it, thus opening them up to be struck down before they've reset," Filius explained. "Come on, stand up, let's do a demonstration," he said with a clap of his hands.
"Now, I will barrage you with disarming jinxes not at my level, but at those of the average adult duellist," he said as they set up into their stances, about twelve metres apart. Seemingly not interested in giving a warning, Flitwick started swiping his wand through the air, sending the red beams at Harry at a pace that he frankly just wasn't able to deal with. He could dodge one, two, three, before the fourth one clipped his elbow as he was forced to spin out of the way, throwing him to the ground. His wand flew out of his wand and towards his vanquisher.
"You're not at the level of the average foe that you'll encounter yet. But most you'll face should have no issue with just this level of assault," Flitwick lectured as he came over to hand Harry back his wand.
"Now, for the second part, send an expelliarmus at me, and I will fumble its deflection to the best of my ability. Then send a second one as quickly as possible. Remember, if you miss by too wide a margin they will just dodge, you have to aim to where they will be tantalised to deflect and show off," the man reminded as they once again took their positions.
Harry nodded and unceremoniously sent out the spell at the man's upper body. Slower than he'd ever seen him do so, Flitwick swiped out his wand in a grandiose diagonal gesture from upper left shoulder to right hip, smashing the spell weakly into the ground, during this time Harry's second spell was already hurtling at the man whose wand arm was now mispositioned. Nevertheless, Flitwick simply side-stepped, before calling to a stop.
"Do you see what I mean? Had your second spell been faster, you could have won right then and there. If the stars align properly for you, you can put on their ass the first slightly competent opponent you meet, if you play on their desire to deflect your jinx. This will be your homework for next week, practice rapid-casting expelliarmus. I don't care if you have to do it four hours a day to get it to the requisite level, just do so as quickly as you can. The faster that happens, the faster we can work on the next strategy," Flitwick requested harshly.
He'd been falling more into the role of a drill instructor with impossible demands. Harry quite liked it, as this was the environment that he thrived in. Other children might not have been able to just cast one spell for several hours straight. First, they'd get exhausted, but Harry had been using magic for more than a decade now. He could probably just about manage. Second, they would lose their motivation. Harry would just put on some music and enter the flow state with his experience in meditation. Maybe even have the hat on his head to attack him with random mental probes so as to simulate the distraction of a real duel. In the end, it also helped that Harry was training for the sake of survival purposes, not just glory.
"Are we already done?" he asked, confusedly.
Flitwick also seemed confused by the question. "Of course not," he said and looked down at his watch, "it's only been an hour. There's just no point in wasting our valuable time together on just one drill. No, we'll also work on the protego. There is a specific technique in which you can let go of the shield, and it stays up for just one more second. This allows you to bring it up to deflect an area of effect spell, while still being free to reposition and retaliate."
"Does it also get rid of that horrible backlash you feel when your shield is destroyed?" Harry asked and received a nod. "Good, I really hate that."
"Well, let's get to work then," Flitwick said as he rubbed his hands together. The man really liked teaching, Charms and duelling. While he'd been teaching the former for a few decades now, it seemed like teaching the latter again for the first time in a while had unlocked something in the man.
As long as Harry reaped the rewards, he was fine with being the test subject of a manic instructor.
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