To fill a gap

Insert the Thing that caused it —

Block it up

With Other — and ‘twill yawn the more —

You cannot solder an Abyss

With Air.

…Emily Dickinson, c. 1862, #546

Mon, 1 Jun 1987

“Mr Dumbledore to see you, Willem,” the perky blonde called whilst leaning through the open doorway. Albus stood back and patiently watched as the short, blocky young gentleman behind the desk waved the notification away without looking up. The new receptionist smiled at the old gentleman and left with a spring in her step. Albus walked slowly into the massively cluttered office and silently reclaimed the same chair from his previous four visits.

Near the beginning of each month, he came to inquire about Harry Potter, and each month, there was no news. He had been pleasantly inquiring of Willem ever since meeting the young man in February, and today would be no different.

At last, the man behind the Willem Matherson desk placard looked up and smiled slightly. “Ah, Mr, uh, Dumbledrum, is it?”

Dumbledore nodded his head slightly, taking no offence. “Dumbledore, yes. How are you this morning, Mr Matherson?” The young man appeared frazzled yet oddly happy to be in such a state.

“Good, good!” Willem stood up and moved over to a rather precarious tower of papers, rifling through the top two or three inches. “Back again to inquire about our missing Master, mmm, Potter, right?” Finally plucking a thin folder out of the pile, Willem returned to his seat as Dumbledore continued to sit patiently.

“Indeed. Have you had any news, then?”

“Well, in a manner of speaking, yes,” Willem said, sliding the thin oak-tag folder under the sheet of paper he had been poring over previously. The young man’s earnest blue eyes regarded Dumbledore solemnly. “We’ve been contacted by our sister office, see. His new guardians are trying to sort out some problems with the paperwork for his therapy or some such. I can’t give you any addresses or anything, Mr, er, Dumbledorf, but I can pass along a message to his guardians.”

Dumbledore schooled his features, carefully taking regulated, deep breaths to avoid a rapid increase in blood pressure. That Harry Potter had been located in any manner was quite good news, but the notion that he apparently was with people who were tending to his well-being was beyond what he had hoped for. The past few months had been a depressing saga of failure to track down the young boy by any means, magical or Muggle. Dumbledore had been unwilling to completely give up, which was why he was once more calling on Mr Matherson, but, in truth, he had finally reached the point where he never really expected Harry Potter to ever be found.

“I understand,” he offered quietly, “but there’s a slight problem. You see, I travel quite a bit, and it can be rather challenging to reach me if you don’t know my schedule. I do, however, have a friend that lives nearby. She holds my mail for me until I come by to collect it. Perhaps I could leave her information and write a short message for young Harry’s guardians that you might relay?”

Willem smiled broadly, clearly relieved that Dumbledore would not be making a scene over the situation. “That will be no problem at all. Here, let me just fetch you some paper and a pen.” After digging through a drawer briefly, the young man slid both items across the desk into easy reach.

Leaning back for a moment, Dumbledore paused to collect his thoughts. It would require the right balance of politeness, concern, and sympathy to open the doors he needed to open so quickly. Setting pen to paper, he briefly reflected at the ingenuity of Muggles as he composed his short letter to be delivered to Harry’s temporary guardians.

When he had finished, he folded the paper in half and wrote his Muggle-based contact address and phone number, using those of Arabella’s house. His letter complete, he stood up slowly, not entirely feigning the stiffness that old age and battles past presented when confronted with uncomfortable furniture.

Willem Matherson looked up from the papers he was once again working on and smiled brightly. “All finished then?”

“Indeed. I thank you for your time, Mr Matherson.”

“Anytime, anytime,” Willem said as he pulled the paper to him and gave it a cursory glance. “This is your contact address, right, Mr, er, Dumbledore?”

“Correct.”

“Perfect. I’ll pass this along and make a copy of how to reach you. When we hear back from them, we’ll be in touch.” Willem stood and held out a hand, a lopsided smile firmly in place. “I’m very glad we’ve found the boy you’ve been looking for, sir.”

Dumbledore slowly took Willem’s hand in his own, making sure he had a firm grip as he looked over his thin glasses and made solid eye contact with the young man. A personal touch always helped reassure people. “As am I, Mr Matherson, as am I.”

Mon, 24 Aug 1987

Mr Brian Dumbledore

c/o Ms Arabella Figg

Mr Dumbledore,

We have been notified by the social care programme office of Surrey that you are seeking to be placed in contact with our ward, Harry Potter. The information forwarded to us gave us this contact address, saying merely that you are an old family friend and seek to be sure of Harry’s good care and well being. We were also forwarded a short missive you left with Mr Matherson. Apparently you found out about the situation at Harry’s former residence from the papers, or so we have been led to believe based on your letter.

With regards to Harry’s care, you may rest assured that he is being well cared for, and we have hopes that his path to recovery has begun. At the same time, we find ourselves confronted with many challenges in dealing with the neglect and abuse that Harry has experienced for many years. We trust you will understand that our correspondence must, at this time, remain through the various social care programme offices, as we are unwilling to share our address with just anyone.

Since you have identified yourself as an “old family friend”, we wish to ask you who exactly you are, and what your relation to the Potter family was. Furthermore, we must insist that you explain how an old family friend that is now actively seeking to make contact remained unaware of the home life that Harry experienced previously. We note that the forwarding address of Ms Figg is mere blocks from the prior residence of Harry.

How is that you could be an old family friend, and yet we have never heard of you from Harry? How is that an old family friend who was frequently within the neighbourhood never looked in on, or intervened in, Harry’s home life?

At this time, your requests for visitation must be refused. Lacking sound answers to our pressing questions, and considering Harry’s current delicate mental balance, we do not wish to introduce anything that may complicate matters. In the future, should your response be properly explanatory, we are willing to revisit the topic. That will remain conditional on Harry’s growth, however, so we cannot speculate on more at this time.

Awaiting your response,

David and Margaret

Thursday, 13 Sep 1989, 19:52

“Well, Harry,” Alison Hale said as she put aside her notebook, “I must say it sounds like you’ve been having a great couple of months.” At five feet six inches, Alison was not quite petite but was light in frame. Her golden hair had a natural set of weak curls that at times frustrated her and at other times she would never willingly give up. Just into her early thirties, she was happy with her married life, her recent decision to start her own family, and her professional career.

Harry, the quiet and kind boy sitting across from her on a settee, gave her one of his rare, open smiles in response. “I think this last trip with Uncle Remus was brilliant!” His boyish enthusiasm was evident, even if Alison thought his response was more muted than a nine-year-old should have had under the circumstances.

“I’m glad, Harry. You certainly deserve some good times, and it sounds like getting to know your parents’ friend even better has done you quite a lot of good. I’m pleased to hear that his letting the garden flat this past year has worked out so well.”

Alison paused to let Harry bask in the reflection of his recent trip to the Yucatan in Mexico with his parents and pseudo-uncle. She knew that she needed to broach a sensitive issue before he left, but it was good to see him truly happy. “Have you thought about what we talked about last time?” Alison was carefully guiding Harry to some topics the boy consistently shied away from, but she had been dealing with recalcitrant characters for a long time now. There was an art to coaxing them into being all they could become. “About some type of exercise classes?”

She had been gently leading him to the problem at the end of each session for months and was carefully increasing the directness of their conversations. “Some kind of physical activity? Running, boxing, fencing, or even gymnastics?”

Harry, per usual as she noted absently, lost his smile and closed up slightly. After almost three full years of therapy, he was blossoming into a genuine, compassionate, and gentle young man. He would probably always have a quiet demeanour and be somewhat reserved, but compared to the condition in which he had first arrived at her office, she thought his progress was nothing short of phenomenal. Their meetings were now only every other week, and Alison found herself looking forward to them as a reward for the countless long hours of hard work she had put into him.

“Well,” Harry offered slowly, keeping his eyes on his trainers, “I talked to Mum and Dad about it a bit after last time. After asking around for a while, Dad seemed to think he knew of someone that might be just right, and the man, uh, Master Gata, I think, well, he’s coming over this weekend. I dunno. I’m not really comfortable with the idea. I don’t want to hurt someone, you know? But that’s supposed to be what he teaches.”

Alison smiled warmly at Harry, accepting his quiet rambling as one of the more overt signs of extreme discomfort. Harry had shied away from anything physical that was not a solo activity. In school, he flat-out refused to participate in team sports, and at his level, there were no viable alternative options. She had written a letter explaining that he was to be excused from such activities unless he chose to initiate them, and she understood that he spent quite a bit of time reading and working on more cerebral pursuits.

“It’s okay to be afraid, Harry,” she reminded him yet again, “but the idea is to not let your fear stop you from doing something. Fear is healthy. It’s good to experience, but you don’t want to let it rule you. When fear controls you, you can’t control your own life.”

Harry squirmed for a moment on the settee before he finally made eye contact with her again. “I know,” he all but whispered, “but I don’t know that I want to learn how to hurt other people. That’s what this man teaches, not just, well, getting in shape or something.”

Alison paused to consider his situation. Strictly speaking, it was ill-advised to make any physical contact with her patients for a variety of reasons, despite her instincts telling her that Harry really needed some reassurance in that manner. Ultimately, Harry was living in fear of becoming like his relatives had been, she was certain. He had a deeply rooted idea of right and wrong, almost completely separate from fair and unfair, and he disliked activities that could easily be used in what he felt was the wrong category.

“It is our choices, Harry,” she said with a gentle smile, “that make us what we are. You’ve said in the past that you want to help others, to keep others from suffering unduly. If you really want to work towards that, you’ll have to learn how to help them sooner or later. Sadly, part of their suffering may be from violence, and if you keep in mind why you are doing something, you will not become what you fear. Your heart doesn’t lean that way, Harry, I am quite certain. You do need to develop your physical condition, but that doesn’t mean you need to turn into a bully. I’m sure whatever your father has found will be appropriate for you.”

She watched Harry work through her words for a while and then noticed that it was really time to stop the session for this week. “Harry, be honest with your own self as well. Wouldn’t you feel better about yourself, knowing that no one can hurt you that way again? If this man, if he can teach you to defend yourself while getting you in shape, it sounds like a good thing to me.”

She knew that was a risky statement. The trust necessary for effective therapy stemmed from not only knowing that there was confidentiality, and building up a friendship of some level, but also in never pushing or advocating anything her patients were unready to face.

The first year with Harry had been nothing short of horrifying — meetings twice a week or more. The amount of pain, confusion, and outright damage that had been inflicted on Harry’s personality broke her heart. Her husband was used to her sometimes coming home upset, but that year it had seemed she was crying herself to sleep at least half the nights they held sessions.

By the end of the first year, he was responding to everyone, he was back in school, and he was trying. Children were remarkably resilient, and, in that respect, Harry was no different. When confronted with anger, shouting, or even the merest hint of violence, however, Harry reverted immediately to a withdrawn and emotionally vacant shell. The successive years since that arduous first one had slowly pushed those worrying traits away, healing what could be healed. At the same time, she had guided him into learning to accept that what had happened and could not be healed was not something Harry deserved or brought upon himself.

To her, the worst moments by far stemmed from attending the evaluation hearings of the Dursley parents, which were essentially status updates in prison. They were not eligible for full parole hearings yet, but the complete psychological assessment from in-prison councillors was compared to her own understanding from working with Harry. She would provide written reports and then testify in person on the sheer volume of abuse and neglect heaped upon their nephew. The photographs of old scars made her nauseous when she saw them at each review. It was always appalling in this day and age to discover that such people still existed and that they still thought they could do as they wished to those entrusted to their care, let alone those of their own flesh and blood. She never understood how anyone thought that having life on their terms, the way they wanted, necessitated such unspeakable physical and mental cruelty or how they could blithely stomach inflicting such pain.

“All right, I’ll try it,” Harry finally offered. Alison was happy to see a hint of the steely resolve she had witnessed when he was intellectually challenged, as it told her he would do whatever challenge was at hand to the best of his ability. There was very little middle ground with Harry. He was either completely dedicated to something or else he had no interest and thus no patience for it.

“I’m glad to hear that, Harry,” she responded, keeping her warm smile in place. “I hope that what you start to learn soon gives you some additional peace of mind. Why don’t you run out to the waiting room and fetch your mum so we can all talk together for a minute?”

Harry gave her that same wry smile she had come to interpret in so many ways, and this one was a classic — the hint of compliance coupled to knowing something she was not privy to, something that would be fun somehow.

As Harry briefly stepped out, Alison made a note to talk to her senior colleagues in the group office. They had offered many suggestions on how to broach the physical recovery to complement the mental recovery, but no one had anticipated it would take so long to actually begin in earnest. Harry’s capitulation marked an important step, and she would have to treat it carefully. They would be full of invaluable suggestions on how she might preserve his motivation should the physical conditioning leave Harry uncomfortable.

During the initial interviews, Harry had been in a room with both her and her favourite mentor, a rather kind if somewhat stern-faced woman in her mid-forties. Part of the standard evaluation practice was to present a patient with two possible therapists and see how they reacted to each. Harry had visibly been wary and even afraid of her mentor, while he was always checking Alison visually for her responses to his statements, so she had been given the case. He had shown his preference, though he never knew he was being tested at the time. Given how he had been raised to that point, it was no surprise he had adversely reacted to the seemingly austere woman.

Margaret Kepson walked in, following closely behind Harry. “Alison, it’s nice to see you,” the woman said as she entered. While Harry closed the door, Margaret pulled out some biscuits wrapped in cellophane and handed them over. “I made these just this morning and saved some for you. They’ve been buying them up at the store like mad. David’s been suggesting we build that commercial kitchen so I can really try my hands out.”

Alison laughed as Margaret chuckled wryly, both of them well acquainted with the many hours that Margaret spent cooking. Two years ago, she had started selling some of her more popular pastries in the local markets at Alison’s urging. Before that, it had strictly been on a catering word-of-mouth basis. Alison loved receiving the surplus of Margaret’s kitchen, as did her husband, but she thought that Margaret had a genuine talent for cooking and had spent the past two years gently persuading the older woman to expand her horizons and clientele.

Harry pulled out a small pack of photos from the bag Margaret carried and slid the stack towards Alison. Curious, she opened the flap to extract half a dozen glossy black and white images. In the first one, Remus and Harry were kneeling in the sand on a beach, a giant sea turtle mere feet from them. “Wow,” she breathed softly. “That’s incredible. Did you get to touch it?”

Harry shook his head. “No, Remus said we shouldn’t disturb them. They were mothers laying their clutches of eggs, and he said that no matter how much we might want to, we shouldn’t interfere with the natural order of things unless something was wrong.”

Alison nodded slowly as she flipped through the pictures. They had a few close-up shots of the egg nest, and she was left feeling slightly envious that Harry had seen something so exciting. “I think I’m jealous, Harry,” she admitted to him as well as herself. “But you definitely deserved a holiday. All that studying you were doing with your uncle was just too much, even if you do claim to enjoy it more than regular school. I’m glad you had a break.”

Sliding the pictures back into the envelope, Alison handed the packet back to Harry. “So is there anything we need to discuss, or will I see the two of you next time?” Alison held Margaret’s eyes a moment longer than she normally would for other patients’ parents, knowing that Harry’s adoptive mum sometimes wanted to speak out of his hearing.

“No, Alison,” Margaret said with a smile. “It’s good to see you. Ready to go, Harry?”

Harry nodded quietly, still clutching the pack of photographs in his left hand. As was their routine, Alison came around and solemnly shook Harry’s right hand, and then, on a whim, she ruffled his hair for the first time. “Get going, tiger. I’ll see you next time.”

The bright smile that Harry had returned would keep her smile in place for the rest of the evening.

Thursday, 13 Sep 1989, 20:14

“Let’s hurry up, Harry. I want to get home and have some of that new coffee David said he was bringing home. It’s a new line at the store.” Margaret kept one hand on Harry’s shoulder, gently guiding him across the street and down toward their Vauxhall sedan. There was some kind of event going on at the big shopping centre just up the road, and she had been forced to hunt for a parking spot for longer than normal.

As the two turned into the side alley where their car was parked, a gust of wind blew along and swept a few rank odours to her nostrils. It was a warm evening for the coast, quite pleasant, but sometimes the revellers got a bit carried away and gave up hunting for a proper loo. She always tried to park on the main streets to avoid such things, but that was not always possible.

“D’you think Remus will be back yet?” Harry asked, trudging along with the packet of photographs still in hand. She smiled warmly at the thought of Harry leading Remus everywhere they went, asking questions non-stop about the why of everything he found. Remus had quietly and efficiently wormed his way into all their hearts and lives, and she knew that his appearance and later guidance were responsible in no small part for Harry’s improvement these past years.

“He did say he would be back tonight. Apparently that pen-pal of his, Mr Flamel, decided that there was something interesting in all those letters full of questions.” Margaret knew that Harry was curious about the reclusive Nicolas Flamel, although at David’s and Margaret’s urging they had asked Remus not to tell Harry everything about the man. It was hard enough to deal with the past lives of her two favourite boys — or rather, wolf and boy — and then there was the discovery that magic was real.

She was keeping it a secret that when she had rung David up at the store before heading to the session with Alison, he mentioned receiving a note that morning telling him that not only would Remus be home that night, but that he was bringing both of the Flamels with him.

Harry chuckled slightly. “Well, it was funny when he tried to Summon the teapot and turned the clock into a half-toad, half-snake.”

Margaret pulled Harry close and gave him a warm, one-armed hug. She loved to hear him laugh for any reason at all. Those first months had been so painful, so frustrating, that she despaired this young man might never smile again. “Yes, Harry, it was funny, but I think the best part was his expression.”

“’Allo, luv, what’s this?”

The sudden looming figure brought Margaret to an immediate halt, mere yards from their car. She pulled Harry firmly against her side with her left hand, clutching her purse close with her right. “I beg your pardon?” she asked in a tight voice.

“’Ere, now, none o’ that. You just be giving me that purse, an’ I’ll be about my business, yeah?” The man held a long gleaming knife that reflected the dull glow of the streetlamps. Margaret was horrified to realise she was about to be mugged, of all things, with Harry right beside her.

She could feel Harry begin to tremble slightly under her left hand, but she knew better than to argue. If she gave him her wallet, she would be out some money, but they would be left alone. Harry would be okay.

She pulled Harry firmly back against her and reached with her left hand toward the purse to extract her wallet, but the man in front of her appeared to misunderstand. “I said, give it over!” He took a half step forward, the knife suddenly extended at them rather than straight up.

“I’m getting my wallet, please, we’ll not —” her words were cut off as the man lunged forward and grabbed the purse from her. Harry was beginning to shake violently, and Remus had warned them that when Harry was overstressed, strange things would happen. His own magic would demand release, and without full training, anything was possible. The fact that magic itself seemed to not work in quite the right way at the house had left Remus backing up and re-working all the theory behind magic itself. Remus had kept Harry working just on principles and the limited training Remus felt he could safely devise while they tried to sort it all out, while also avoiding the detection of the Ministry of Magic.

The man upended the bag on the sidewalk, scattering her cosmetics and growling at the meagre contents. “You’re holding out on me, aren’t you, luv?”

It was evident to Margaret that whatever she had assumed, she was incorrect. The man reeked of alcohol, and she was suddenly terrified for what Harry was about to witness.

As the man kicked the contents of her bag into the gutter, he stood up straight and held the knife low, directly at her navel. She could faintly see the stained teeth as he leered and took another step toward them.

“No!” Harry pulled out of her arms, stepping fully in front of her. “Leave us alone!” With one sharp jabbing hand motion on Harry’s part, there was a bright flash of light and intense pain.

Their assailant was knocked back some ten feet, while Harry stood in front of her, hands extended as though prepared to fight and protect them. How she loved her boy. She could see something dark glistening on the left side of his neck, and her chest felt cold, or hot, so very cold and hot.

The man got to his feet and took one long look at them before turning and running off. When Harry sagged in relief and turned to face her, she was wondering why she had to look up at him from the ground. “Harry?” Her own voice sounded faint to her ears, which were filled with some dull roaring sound in the background.

Harry dropped to his feet and stared at something sticking out of her chest. It was so hot, so cold, so empty, and Harry was yelling something. She needed to comfort him, like when he had those horrible nightmares, but it was so hard to move. “It will be all right, Harry,” she whispered, “your mum is here now.”

She struggled to remember when the street had become so very, very dark.

Tue, 12 Sep 1995, 04:33

Harry was out of bed, moving into stance, both wands glowing brightly, harshly breathing before he realised that he was at Hogwarts, the silent room fully lit. He had fallen asleep in his clothes after staring at that damnable mirror, and he could feel his heart pounding in fury and impotence.

Aside from the sound of his lungs pumping too hard, the room was calm. Nothing moved. The mirror continued to reflect what was there, while Floppy was sprawled across the pillows. His broom and bag were still laid upon his desk, and his boots were still firmly secured. There were no opponents, no battles to be fought. There was only an empty room and his reflection in glass.

Harry slowly lowered his arms as he regarded the silence of the room. Unlike his home, there existed a complete void of background humming, of central heat and air, of electronic devices to light up the night or emit a faint yet incessant high-pitched whine, and it was all slightly surreal. With the realisation that nothing was changing no matter the desires of the moment, Harry sank onto the edge of the bed and tried to clear his mind. The graduated series of breathing exercises and profound quiet helped, although in some ways the latter was mildly disconcerting.

With a sigh, Harry got to his feet before collecting a change of clothes and heading for the shower. He knew that sleep would evade him for the rest of the morning, and, as he had to meet Ginny shortly, there was little point in pretending to flirt with Morpheus. A long, hot shower would help him find his balance to face another day.

Once Harry returned, feeling at least marginally under control, he finished dressing and securing his boots. As a matter of course, once his boot-laces, belt, and clothes were fully in place and cinched tight, he rapidly cast several silent Colloresus Charms. In the same family as the door-sealing Colloportus Charm, the end result was that each boot moulded into one seamless piece, as did his belt, his shirt and trousers.

Releasing the protections and wards on his trunk, Harry carefully moved things around until he extracted his old outgrown dragon-hide armour. Setting that on the bed, Harry replaced the other contents back into the trunk, pausing only to open his Transporter Box. Harry was slightly surprised to see a note in there, given that he was unaware of any scheduled events that might warrant communication before his regular visit home. Flipping the note on top of the piled armour, Harry sealed the Transporter Box and then his trunk, reactivating all the protection layers.

Glancing at his watch, Harry realised he had only a few minutes before he was due to meet Ginny. The note he had received was clearly penned in Remus’ hand, yet it had none of the markings indicating urgency. Trying not to think about whatever contents may lurk inside, Harry stuffed the note into his trouser pocket and headed for the door out of the suite.

“Mr Potter!” Floppy’s voice called from behind him.

Harry paused in the middle of the common area within the suite. “What is it, Floppy?”

“You’re not leaving without me, now are you?”

Harry sighed in resignation, debating internally about how much he wanted to talk with the Hat at the moment. “Does it matter? You’re either silent or badgering me over something, and you’ve already scanned my memories.”

“A deal is a deal, Mr Potter. You agreed to continue wearing me until you’re Sorted properly. I still think that time has not come, and that decision is mine to make, and mine alone.”

Realising that it was pointless to argue with a hat, let alone this Hat, Harry reluctantly fetched Floppy and tossed him over one shoulder. “Wearing comes in many forms, Floppy. Maybe I’ll try you out as a sock.” Once again Harry made his way toward the Gryffindor common room, carrying the armour for Ginny to wear.

“Really, Mr Potter, are you so afraid of being open that you must always resort to such petty threats?”

Harry stopped once more in the middle of the suite’s common area. “And just what the hell is that about, Floppy? Being open? Did I or did I not let you scan my memories?”

“You let me see them, yes, yet you refuse to talk or think about them. Just how long do you plan to have your head in the sand, Mr Potter?”

“What?!” For some reason, the Hat’s patronizing tone was grating on Harry’s nerves. “If you’d actually try talking and not Dumbledoring about something, then maybe you’d get more satisfaction in life!”

“And just what is it about the Headmaster that you fear so?”

“Fear? Him? Ha!” Harry snorted in derision. “That’s right up there with fearing an unknown Riddle!”

“But you do, Mr Potter, on both counts. You and I both know that’s true.”

“I don’t fear old man Tom!” Harry was unable to stop the snarl from escaping. Whatever gains he had made since waking up were quickly disappearing, and he knew it. “And I’ll be damned if I’ll fear that old man in the hospital wing either!”

With an irrational burst of anger, Harry flung Floppy off his shoulder and onto the floor. Without pausing to think further, he stormed out of the suite and down the hall. The Fat Lady was sleeping soundly, but Harry paid her no mind as he poked her abruptly in the gut. “Wake up!”

The Fat Lady fell out of her chair, startled and swearing. As she slowly clambered to her feet, she shook her head and glared at Harry. “What was —”

Harry was in no mood to listen to a painting. “Patronus!”

With a screech of protest from the occupant, the portrait swung open even as the Fat Lady let loose a stream of archaic epithets and commentary about Harry’s lack of manners that would have made Sirius chuckle. Harry ignored her as he climbed through the opening and into the common room, flicking his wand in irritation at one of the great fireplaces. The cold chamber flared brightly as his overpowered Incendio triggered the Ever-Burn Charm to full power.

The resulting wave of heat washed over him as the bright light illuminated the common room in a bizarre and almost macabre way, but Harry was far too irritated to care. Throwing the armour on a sofa, he slammed himself into a chair and tried to get his breathing and thinking back under control. He had only been sitting for a brief moment before there was a loud crack!, and Floppy was firmly ensconced on his head.

“I’ll overlook your treatment of the Fat Lady, Mr Potter, but A Deal is A Deal.” So saying, the Hat went limp and drooped down over his right ear, much like it had the night of his so-called Sorting.

Grinding his teeth in fury, Harry fought the extreme temptation to chuck the Hat into the burning fire when an audible clomping of feet made him turn around.

Not realising how apparent his seething anger was, he turned to watch Ginny stop in mid-step, her sleepy countenance suddenly nervous and uncertain as she backed up to the foot of the staircase. Harry pointed peremptorily at the mound of armour lying untidily on the sofa. “Go put that on.” He could tell his voice was frosty, but that was a problem for another time. At the moment, he needed to leash his emotions.

Ginny made no effort to move. She simply stood there regarding Harry as he struggled to get his mind in one place. At last, she cautiously walked towards the sofa, hands thrust deep into her trouser pockets while she kept her eyes glued to Harry. She may have been sleepy when she came down the stairs, but it was obvious now that she was anything but.

Harry closed his eyes and turned his face toward the fire, starting the relaxation sequence over with First Breathing exercises. He ignored the sounds of Ginny picking up the armour and climbing back up the stairs.

When the silence had continued long enough that he was relatively certain Ginny was otherwise occupied, he blew out a slow breath. “I don’t need this crap right now, Floppy.” Harry was proud that his voice was almost even keeled.

“The problem, Mr Potter, is that by the time you realise that you do need this crap, it will be far too late to be of use.”

Barely registering the sound of his teeth grinding viciously, Harry twitched as he once more suppressed the urge to chuck the Hat into the fire. “Spit it out, then, or else shut up.”

“I have warned you, Mr Potter, that you are on a slippery slope. None will be able to catch you if you fall. You must understand yourself before you may move forward safely.”

“What the bloody hell does that mean? Understand yourself?” Harry snorted in a mixture of antipathy and jaded humour. “I’ll just step out for a couple of months to chat myself up and let old Riddle have his way in the interim, shall I?”

“You revel in extremism, Mr Potter, when you know perfectly well that reality is not so easily boxed.”

“You haven’t answered my question!” Harry shot back with enough vehemence that he realised he should switch to non-verbal communications lest random Gryffindors learn more than they ought. Understand what? I understand perfectly well! Either I take down that idiot, or he’ll take me down! Either way, it’s hell in a hand basket to get to our mutual date with fate! What else is there for me?

There is far more to life than conflict, Mr Potter. Focusing entirely on one goal to the exclusion of all else is not healthy, wise, or safe.

And just what the hell would you recommend I do? Spend some quality time in front of that mirror?! Even communicating mentally, Harry knew that Floppy would more than catch the complete disdain he was feeling about their entire conversation. Or maybe I should contact Riddle and just tell him: Sorry, I’m confused, exactly why are you trying to kill me again? No, wait, even better, I can drop him a line and offer to let him have Britain if I can have Italy. That’s fair, right? He gets London, and I get Rome. We’re both alive. What’s not to like in that deal?

I would recommend that you stop pushing your agenda so hard, Mr Potter. You need to see the consequences of your actions to yourself as well as to others.

Harry’s snort was audible this time. “Right, let me just add that to list. ‘Sorry, before I kill your sorry arse, Tom my friend, I need to decide how I’m going to feel about it all. Do just sit in the corner over there while I work that little detail out, would you?’ That is what you want me to do, Floppy?”

Are you aware that Miss Weasley is presently watching you with some concern?

Harry spun in place and saw Ginny standing halfway between the staircase and his spot in front the fire. “Bugger,” he muttered.

“Err, good morning to you, too, Harry.” Ginny’s voice was neither teasing nor welcoming. Rather, she seemed to prefer the kind of tone one would use when approaching a complete stranger.

“Good for you, maybe,” Harry said darkly. “Let’s go.” With a jerk of his head, Harry began walking toward the portrait, doing his best not to stomp.

“Uh, Harry?” The overt uncertainty in her voice made him pause and, once again, vainly try to find some level of mental balance. “I’ve, uh, never worn armour before. Is it right?”

Harry closed his eyes and tried counting to ten, then twenty, and then he simply tried breathing deeply before he turned back around. “Look,” he offered finally, knowing his voice was somewhat cooler than it should be, “this isn’t about you. I’m sorry I’m a little … curt … this morning. I’ve just got a few things weighing on my mind. Right?” Receiving a slow nod in response, Harry walked over to Ginny, doing his best to ignore her shifting from foot to foot as he got within arm’s length.

Harry paused to take in her outfit. He could see the rumples of the armour bunched in a few places, but she was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and trousers that both fit reasonably well over the dragon hide. Her boots appeared to be new, as did her clothes, and were probably the ones that Remus picked up for her at Harry’s prior request. All in all, she was dressed rather similarly to how he was. “Right. It’s a bit too big for you, but it’ll do for you to get used to wearing it. When do you see Remus next?”

Ginny kept her eyes on the floor as she answered. “He said that today he’d be busy with something important. He said he would let me know via owl in the next day or two about a regular schedule. He, uh, gave me some things to read. Like I haven’t got enough between lessons, that theory book, and then the legal stuff, he has to add to it all.”

Harry sighed and moved behind her. “Knowledge is power, Ginny, and what you’re beginning to learn now is all the way up at the top of that scale. If you get swamped, let one of us know, and we’ll help you out. Now, take a deep breath.”

Harry took a minute to push her plait out of the way as he pulled the armour across her shoulders as tight as the pieces would go, and then bunched the excess armour into a tight handle at the base of her neck. Keeping one hand in place there, he tugged and cinched the side straps until there was a long bubble of excess material running the length of her spine. Ginny shifted a bit as he pulled it tight, almost jumping when he got it too tight in certain areas. The shoulders were obviously too loose, the chest was about right, and the waist needed the most reduction. Since it was a non-uniform adjustment to resize the armour, Harry was uncertain he could fix it properly. “Sorry, Ginny. I can’t fix this and not risk ruining the armour.”

Blowing his breath out slowly, he was pleased that he was beginning to get his frustration under control. Floppy going silent was doing wonders for his mental balance. Releasing the armour, Harry walked back around to face the redhead. “Send a note to Remus, tell him you need the armour resized and that it’s beyond my confidence to get it right. He’ll know who to drag along to fix it up. Tonks, probably, since you already met her in the infirmary the other night.”

Harry glanced over her outfit one more time, trying to decide what it changed about her appearance that made him feel more secure in his decision to train her. Deciding it was probably just the fact she was dressed like she could survive if she got in a fight, Harry nodded his head back toward the portrait. “I expect to see you dressed like that every day from now on. Some people will train you in funny clothes or no boots or whatever, but that’s a mistake. You have to learn how to fight in what you’ll actually wear day to day. We’re going to solve that problem by changing your wardrobe, and then you’re always ready to go. Once you know how to fight in that, you can add other clothes back in.”

Harry paused as he let Ginny exit the portrait before him. As soon as he stepped through, however, the Fat Lady began yelling at him. Harry raised one eyebrow at her paltry ability to impart modern invective and just walked on, leaving Ginny to hurry along in his wake as the archaic character attacks trailed off.

“What did you do to her?”

“Woke her up without the tea and biscuits and pretty-pleases.”

Ginny sighed softly. “You know, Harry, it wouldn’t kill you to be nice to people.”

“And it won’t kill people to hear facts, either, without the fluff.”

Ginny said nothing as they walked along one corridor after another. As they passed the Headmaster’s staircase, Harry was amused to see the gargoyle give him a very flat look.

“Did that gargoyle just … ?”

“Yeah,” Harry said quietly as they walked along. “I think the fellow’s decided to hold a grudge, even if it was an accident.”

“I don’t want to know, really,” Ginny said as she continued to walk along, hands in pockets and eyes down.

“Right. Lesson One. Look up.” Ginny looked over at Harry, but he simply placed one hand on her jaw and gently but forcibly turned her face forward. “You walk around looking at the floor all the time, like lots of people here do. It makes you weak, it makes your demeanour vulnerable, and it leaves you half-way defeated before you even start.”

Harry took his hand back but kept up his commentary. “Look outward. Make eye contact. Sweep your eyes from side to side. Look for where people could hide. Look for what might be ready to leap out and attack. Remember what’s around you — furniture, people, things you can pick up or hide behind. Look for people unwilling to meet your gaze or for people that look in your eyes slightly too long. All of these are risks or tools, and you need to be ready to move and defend yourself. Looking down denies you all of this.”

As they reached the main thoroughfare, he began to think longingly of the broom he had left back in his suite. “Some people think that if they can’t see you, you can’t see them. That’s stupid. If you can’t see them, then they will certainly kill you before you even know you’re in danger.” Harry realised there was a certain ironic justice to the statement given the events of the summer past. He was quite determined to not make the same mistake twice.

“So where are we going, then?”

“You’ll see. This is one of my secrets to be kept from others, though, right?” Ginny nodded at him, to which he gave her a weak smile in response, but she was already looking back out and around.

By the time they arrived outside the corridor to the Come and Go Room, Harry thought Ginny was just starting to become used to the idea of looking up as she walked. She almost had a smile on her face and kept looking around the long corridor, or glancing over towards the staircase down. “Wait here a moment. Let me get the room set up.”

Leaving a slightly puzzled redhead behind him, he carefully paced back and forth while swinging his wand dramatically, muttering nonsense. He knew that the wand and words had nothing to do with it, but he was unwilling to share the secret of the room with her as yet. It would do as a training room, though, until things were well settled. He just wanted to obfuscate the access mechanism for a while.

When the door finally appeared, Harry opened it and glanced inside. Seeing the training room he had previously summoned, he waved Ginny in and then followed her in before closing and sealing the door with a quick Colloportus. After he layered Proximity and Imperturbable Charms on the door and wall facing into the hallway, he turned to see Ginny staring around with open surprise.

“What is this place?”

“I’ll have to tell you that some other time. Maybe in a few weeks.” Harry gestured for her to walk into the room. “Today, we’re going to fix the real problem you have. We’ll call this Lesson Two.”

As Ginny stood in the middle of the room, Harry paced, collecting his thoughts and ignoring her visually tracking him. “You want to know how to fight. That’s all wrong, really. There are three things you need to realise. First, you need some physical conditioning to have endurance and raw strength. Second, you need some training to learn how to use that endurance and strength in the right way. Both of these are easily solved with plain hard work on your part. We’ll get to those things later, but the really big one is your attitude.”

Harry pointed at the weapons racked on the wall. “Those are weapons to you, right?” At Ginny’s nod, he held up one of his wands. “As is this?” Again she nodded, her face neutral. “So you’d say the same for my fist or feet?” As she nodded for the third time, Harry shook his own head in turn.

“None of these are weapons, Ginny. They are tools. It’s your mind that makes them a weapon. Tell me the name of the spell you think is the least weapon-like — something that you think couldn’t be used in an attack at all.”

Ginny narrowed her eyes as she stared at Harry. “Why?”

Harry offered her a wry smile. “We’re going to play a game. You’re going to try to attack me, and I’m going to stop you using the spell you pick. So, what’ll it be?”

Ginny kept her eyes narrowed as she regarded Harry for a long, silent moment. “The Cushioning Charm, I’d have to say.”

Harry grinned. “Right. That’s what it’ll be, then.” Harry held up one wand. “Your mission is to disarm me, to take away my ‘weapon,’ and I’ll only use this one wand. You can use magic, physical force, both, whatever you like. I’ll not even try to fight you off, unless it’s using that one spell. Right?”

Ginny had a wolfish smile on her face. “You’re making this awfully easy if you’re not going to fight back except with that charm, Harry.”

Harry’s answering smile had the intended effect, based on what Neville had told him previously, when Ginny’s own smile disappeared and she took a nervous half-step backward. “Begin when you feel like it, Ginevra.”

Almost as though that last word had been a match to a powder keg, the redhead neatly leapt at him in one surprisingly fluid motion. Before she could take a second step, however, Harry had silently cast the Cushioning Charm right in front of where her foot would land. When her foot landed on the wobbly surface, she went sprawling across the floor. Her uncontrolled tumble quickly left her falling off the edge of the cushioned area and onto the wooden floor with a thump. Harry ignored her fall and continued to cast the charm in a precise pattern between them.

As she gamely got back to her feet and got her bearings, Harry continued his project to place an entire stack of Cushioning Charms on top of each other. Ginny’s gaze locked onto the space separating them, and it was obvious she was trying to decide exactly where Harry was casting the spell as she shifted about somewhat nervously. While she was focusing and thinking, Harry kept building the stack higher, placing each one slightly closer to Ginny. He ignored the bead of sweat forming on his brow as his rapid-fire casting came to a close.

To his vision, it was trivial to see the exact shape and size of each one, thereby enabling him to stack them rather high. Since each cushioned region was approximately five feet by five feet, and one foot thick, the final tower was around fifteen feet tall when he stopped to consider whether he should build another tower next to it. Before he could make up his mind, however, Ginny decided to act instead of watching him.

With a face of sheer determination, Ginny levelled her wand and cast a loud “Finite Incantatem!” When the space between them flared brightly as one Cushioning Charm near the bottom of the stack vanished, Harry shot her a smirk and yawned theatrically at her. Her second spell, a bright “Stupefy!” obviously aimed for his chest, impacted another charm and actually caused it to shatter as he watched, twirling his wand slowly.

The entire stack teetered for a split second, seriously unbalanced from the two lost pieces and the uneven weight distribution, so Harry waved bye-bye in a child-like manner before watching the entire pile fall on top of the redhead. She was pinned for a moment under some of the Cushioning Charms that had come to rest across her legs, her back forcibly raised up from another charm that she partially fell on top of, and Harry thought it looked to be quite an uncomfortable position. Harry saw that her wand was just out of reach and under a third charm. He was amused to see her repeatedly reach for the wand, only to find her hand mired in the charm above it, before she gave up and tried to lift the charm off her legs.

She was still laboriously trying to get a hand-hold on the invisible region of the charm when Harry just shook his head slowly. “You know you’d be dead by now, right?”

When Ginny glared at him, Harry just waved his hands in mock defeat and then cast repeated silent Finites on the Cushioning Charms scattered about.

After Ginny grabbed her wand and rolled back to her feet, she stood there regarding him in silence. Harry was certain that she was becoming irritated, which, in his opinion, could only be a good thing. Harry shot her another grin along with a wink. “Giving up already, Ginevra?” he asked in an overly polite voice, obviously mocking her.

In the blink of an eye, she flicked her wand at him as she began to rattle off a hex he had never heard before.

Harry almost negligently cast the Cushioning Charm on her head, immediately silencing her as she dropped her wand and began trying to claw at her throat. It was obvious she was unable to breathe, but she was also unable to touch her face or throat no matter how much effort she put into it. With the charm fully in place and folded around her head and upper torso, Harry began a slow count to sixty. He kept a close eye on her actions, wanting to be sure she was pushed to near panic without completely succumbing to the sensation.

At first, she was frantically trying to lift the invisible material, but was facing the same problem she had with reclaiming her wand. Then she tried moving it aside, but that did not work either. She had fallen to her knees, but was still fighting to get the material away from her face. As he neared thirty-five in his count, her colour was peaking, and he knew she was firmly out of air and was starting to fully grasp the danger. Before, it had been simply been an intellectual exercise and simple surprise, but now she understood how precarious everything really was.

He reached forty-one before he thought she was ready to reach the panic state. Her aura had steadily grown brighter as her emotional state regressed to animalistic urges, and it was pulsing slightly, a sure precursor to an accidental discharge. With a flick and a silent Finite!, Harry released the charm.

Ginny slumped to the floor, the action suddenly loud in the room as she panted heavily and rested her forehead on the ground.

Harry inspected his wand while she regained her composure. He knew precisely how unnerving it was to find yourself unable to breathe without warning, and he would never fault anyone for their immediate reaction to the first-time experience. When she finally looked up at him, he could see the glint of true anger in her eyes.

“What the hell was that, Harry?”

Harry gave her a half-shrug, half-smile. “Cushioning Charm cast on your head.”

“Okay,” she said as she got to her feet slowly, fetching her wand along the way. “Let me ask that another way. Why did that happen?”

“You neglected to learn the lesson of the stacked charms. They have volume, and gravity affects them.” Harry tapped his chin with his wand tip for a moment as he tried to think of the best way to answer the question. “You have to understand how something works before you can really know how to use it properly. That charm basically makes the air move very slowly, kind of like a fluid, right? But it’s still flexible when you hit it really hard, because it isn’t actually a fluid, it’s more like a pillow in some ways.” Harry stopped for a minute to pace around.

The problem was that the magical world lacked the vocabulary and innate understanding of first principles to make any explanation coherent. “If you understood Muggle physics, it would be easier to explain this. The air inside the charm is almost glued together into a big block, and it doesn’t separate easily. The net effect is that it’s far too thick to truly breathe, so casting that on your head allowed it to settle around your face, impeding the surrounding air too — your lungs just aren’t strong enough to break the charm apart to let normal air pass. But you also learned how hard it is to reach through one. Imagine casting that on an opponent’s wand once you have it away from them, eh?”

Ginny said nothing as she continued to watch Harry, but he was fairly certain she was thinking about what he had said. “Now. What mistakes did you make, Ginny?”

Ginny shook her head slowly but answered anyway. “I’m not entirely sure, but I think I didn’t try to attack you quickly enough.”

“True to a point,” Harry offered. “But you’re never going to always be the one to attack first. Don’t rely on being first to draw and hex, or you’ll lose. What else?”

“I didn’t account for what you could do with the charm.”

“Yes. But that’s because you didn’t take the danger seriously. Did you?”

Ginny shook her head in silence. Harry was pleased to see that she was showing no embarrassment, only some frustration.

“Okay, Ginny, there are two more small things and one major one. Little things first. Number one, you let your anger get to you. You reacted to my taunting, rather than having a clear plan of attack. When you let your emotions control your reaction, well, things usually don’t go very well.” Harry paused until Ginny nodded her acquiescence slowly.

“Second, you were throwing single attacks. If you’re going to attack, then attack. You don’t stand still. You keep moving. You keep attacking. You throw spells, fists, whatever you have until your opponent is down, and you’re certain they are incapacitated — no guesses involved. If you toss off a spell and then wait for a response, you’re dead already. A real opponent isn’t going to trade volleys with you. A real opponent is going to start and only stop when you’re a bloody ruin on the floor.”

Harry slowly tapped his forehead. “But your biggest problem is that you had a failure of imagination. You think there are weapons and not-weapons. Everything is a weapon, Ginny, be it a spoon, a mitten, or a pile of leaves. The deadliest weapon that exists is the one between your ears. I can train you physically. I can help you understand what every spell does. But I can’t make your imagination work, Ginny. Only you can do that.”

Ginny seemed to lose some of the ground she had gained, her eyes downcast as she shifted uncertainly from one foot to another.

“Chin up, Ginny. Look out. Look for opponents. Lesson One, right?” When her head snapped up and her eyes flashed fire, Harry wondered if he had misunderstood her earlier reaction. “I can’t teach you imagination, but I can force you to use it.”

“Oh?” Her tone was clearly challenging, if a bit quieter than he would have expected.

“We’re going to duel.” Ginny’s complexion rapidly became a good facsimile of a pale sheet. “Not like that. Every morning, we’re going to train like today, and the first exercise will be what we just did in reverse. I’m going to assign you a spell. You will defend yourself and attack me using only that one spell. Clear?”

At her sharp nod, Harry smiled widely. “Excellent. Tomorrow, you will use Scourgify. You might want to read up on it sometime today, maybe even try to figure out what it really does and how it works.”

Harry gestured for Ginny to come closer. With a quick bit of work, he conjured a fake wand of plain oak. “Put your wand away. We’re going to stop with magical training and start to work on the physical and mental bits that don’t need it.’

When Ginny was within arm’s reach, Harry tucked his wand away and held up the fake wand between them. “Let’s assume you’ve made it this close to me. I’m about to cast a Killing Curse or whatever. You don’t want to let my wand point at you. Your only goal is to stop me. Clear?”

When she nodded, Harry shot her a smile as he slowly began to move his arm as though he was going to cast a spell. More or less as expected, Ginny lunged out and wrapped her left hand around the base of the wand just above his right hand, while her right hand grabbed his left wrist. She applied quite a bit of force to push the wand back and away as Harry simply resisted her efforts for a moment.

After he decided a few seconds had passed in the tension of her pushing and his resisting, Harry merely let go of the wand. He shot his left hand out to break her grip on his wrist, pulling her slightly off balance as she stumbled forward from the unexpected lack of resistance. Simultaneously, Harry brought his right forearm up under her chin, and then he finished his motion as he raised his right arm up whilst taking a half step forward, bringing the arm back down as he moved.

Ginny’s chin, trapped inside Harry’s right elbow, involuntarily shot straight up and backward in a perfect parabolic arc, forcing her body to sit down hard on the wood floor as her head moved backward and her vestibular system gave her no choices.

Before she could react to the sudden change in scenery, Harry had calmly used his reversed grip on her right wrist as a pivot to drive her arm to full extension. He then applied gentle pressure across the back of her elbow with his own, causing a faint hyperextension and thereby rolling her shoulder into the ground and forcing her to lie down. As she lay on her stomach and uttered a soft cry of pain, Harry kept her extended arm trapped in his hands, his left elbow maintaining the pressure on the back of her right elbow just shy of true hyperextension.

“Ah yes, the sound of a lesson being learned,” Harry offered conversationally. He kept the pressure on her elbow just short of excruciating. “Never focus on a perceived weapon to the exclusion of all else.”

Stepping back, Harry released her arm and let her roll over and glare at him from the ground. “Ginny, you did exactly what most people do. You tried to control the weapon, but you spent everything you had on the effort — your strength, your concentration, everything. It never occurred to you I might just let you have it, since that single moment of recovery for you was all I needed to completely take you out. Even worse, if I had held a knife in my left hand, I could have buried it in you, and you’d never have seen it coming.”

Harry held out a hand to the redhead, and she accepted it although with clear reluctance. After he hauled her back to her feet, he just smiled wryly. “So when your opponent tries to wrest something away from you, let them have it after a token struggle. Then relocate their groin into their throat with a well placed kick or something.”

Ginny’s eyebrows nearly shot into her hairline. “What if it’s a woman?”

Harry chuckled darkly for a moment. “I’ve been advised that when you kick someone there properly, it makes no difference. And now that you’re wearing those spiffy steel-toe boots, trust me, any kick that lands on the groin is going to be a proper one.”

Ginny smiled faintly as she rubbed her right arm. “Right. I’ll bear that in mind, Harry.”

“You do that.” Harry had visions of Tonks and her lessons in his brain for a moment before he shook himself back to the situation. “Okay, so have you started to understand the mental parts yet?”

Ginny switched her focus and rubbed at the shoulder he had pinned to the ground for a moment before she looked back at him. “I think so. I’m still not imagining things that might happen or things to do.”

“Sort of, but that’s just lack of experience. The best part is, experience is a sharp teacher, and pain is your friend. Pain drills in all kinds of lessons very quickly.” As he guided her back to the centre of the wooden floor, Harry gave her his best wolfish smile. “And speaking of pain, it’s time to start teaching you how to physically train. That means warm-ups, stretching, exercising, and then the fun stuff — stances, techniques, and all that. Ready?”

Tue, 12 Sep 1995, 07:16

The Great Hall was still mostly empty when Fred and George dropped into the seats across from Harry and the slumped form of Ginny. Harry was assembling a breakfast of random items, while Ginny was primarily muttering under her breath, her head resting on her crossed forearms, much to Harry’s amusement. He had already placed three water pitchers in front of her, and she had skipped the goblet completely for the first few moments as she drained one in a veritable bath. When she had finally come up for air, he had cast a quick Drying Charm on her clothes, which she refused to acknowledge, instead dropping back into a slumped wreck.

“Oi, what did you do to our sister this time?” Fred leaned over the table to lift up Ginny’s head. When she glared at him, he hastily sat back down and held both hands up. “Just making sure you were alive!”

Ginny promptly dropped her head back onto her folded arms as Harry winked at the twins. “I was giving Ginny an education in how to use her imagination, as it were. I thought she needed some secure, risk-free lessons.”

“What do you mean, teaching her to use her imagination?” George looked quite curious. “If you want unconventional evil, you’re sitting across from it right now, young Harry. You should recognise our evil genius.”

“Oh?” Harry smiled widely at the twins. “All I’ve seen out of you two is a bit of potions work that not even a child would fall for if they had a decent education.”

Ginny looked up at that, albeit rather wearily and with a precarious tilt to one side, but quickly enough to join Harry in the spectacle of the twins glowering ominously and turning a dark red. “You know, George,” Fred offered quietly, “I do believe that our skills have been called into question.”

“Quite.” George gave a decisive nod. “It seems that Harry needs to learn who thinks most outlandishly and can devise the most surprises.”

Before Harry could say anything, Ginny whistled quietly. “You two really are something, aren’t you? If you can outwit Harry, I’ll publicly worship you for a day!” Having divulged the contents of her mind, she slumped back into a pile on the table and resumed her faint muttering.

Harry offered a benign smile to the twins as they looked at the back of their sister’s head in consternation. “Don’t mind her. She had a close encounter with a Cushioning Charm earlier, but she didn’t like that soft, comforting feeling.” Harry patted Ginny’s shoulder in mock sympathy. “There, there, ickle Gin-Gin, it’ll all be a distant memory soon enough. Someday you’ll even thank me for it.”

Without thinking about it, Harry caught Ginny’s hand that lashed out to clearly slap his face. Placing it back on the table, he kept a firm grip on it so that she was unable to strike out a second time. The force she was putting into trying to extricate her arm was considerable. “I’m glad to see you still have some energy in your arms. We’ll work more on those tomorrow.” Harry ignored the groan that emitted from the girl, releasing his grip on her as she became passive again. “It’s all in the mind, Ginny. Speaking of minds, Fred and George, what’s your agenda against Hogwarts for today?”

“Against Hogwarts, Harry?” Fred offered with a cool tone. “Don’t you mean against you?”

Harry shrugged. “So you claim, yet I’ve seen very little. You’ve had much better luck in your works against the others.”

George looked flat-out irritated. “Again with the insults. True genius takes time. It’s not something to be rushed by impatient youths.”

“Really?” Harry smiled wickedly. “So your protestations aren’t a cover for being here so early or what’s on the table, then?”

“There’s nothing on the table, Harry. What are you on about?”

Harry had to hand it to the twins. They were very good at acting, most likely from years of practice of talking their way out of some spot of trouble. “The jam pots between us have something added to them, and whatever it is, it’s got your sticky signatures all over it.”

Fred stared with surprise while George just frowned. “How’d you figure that out, Harry?”

Meanwhile, Ginny was looking up at Harry. “That’s why you told me to lay off the toast this morning?”

Harry waved off both questions, nodding instead toward the middle of the Head Table. Using his wand, he cast a quick Switching Charm to swap their collection of pots for the ones there. “There you go, Gin-Gin. Now you can have all the toast you like.”

Fred’s eyes narrowed, much in the same way that Ginny’s had. “You know that they are going to blame us. Very clever, Harry. How do you know we only modified the one set of pots?”

Harry just gave them his best smile. “That’s what makes it all so much fun, right? You’re guessing. I’m guessing. Why, no one knows what’s going to happen next. You could even say it’s all a trade secret.”

Looks of unholy glee crossed Fred and George’s faces, and then George hauled his bag onto the table. Ginny slowly sat up, leaning precariously on one arm rather than one hand as she dragged the small blackberry jam pot next to her plate. When George brought out a copy of 1001 Charms For Hairstyling, however, she abruptly choked on the toast she was eating and Harry had to clap her on the back a couple of times.

“What are you doing with that?” Ginny demanded in a watery voice.

Fred and George made a great show of looking about before they nodded briefly. George opened the cover and held it up so that Harry and Ginny could see the contents.

Trade Secret

Products for the Discerning

Section 1: Finding the Hidden

Section 2: Making Things Hidden

Section 3: Multi-purpose Clothing

Section 4: Books Unlike Any Other

Section …

“Nice,” Harry offered. “How’d you hear about that, then?”

Fred leaned over to continue the air of drama and mystery. With a second exaggerated sweep of the surrounding vacant seats, his voice came out in a whisper. “No clue.”

George was thumbing through the catalogue, but he chimed in anyway. “Just showed up a few days back. There was a note saying we had been recommended as potential clientele and that we should keep silent about it except to our, er, what was it?”

“Co-conspirators,” Fred said promptly, “which, if anyone, would be you two and Lee.”

Harry smiled as Fred began assembling a breakfast plate. “Mind if I look through it?”

George looked up with his own sly smile. “Maybe later, Harry. After your surrender, I should think.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Right, well, here comes your brother and his girlfriend. You’d best put it away if you don’t want Hermione memorising it.”

After a quick confirmatory glance toward an incoming crowd of Gryffindors, George placed his “Charms” magazine back in his bag and assembled his own breakfast. “Right, so you had a fun morning, then, Harry?”

Harry shrugged passively while Ginny threw a piece of crust she had been about to eat at her brother. The siblings started a normal round of teasing as Ron, Hermione, and Neville joined them. As he waved to the new arrivals, Harry also saw Umbridge enter the room. Ron was still sitting as far away from Harry as he could manage, which was a drawback this morning since the unusually tall boy was situated in the wrong place to block the foul woman’s view of Harry.

As Harry expected, Umbridge halted her progress to the Head Table when she spotted him. She made a beeline as she moved to stand close by the Gryffindor table, a false smile firmly in place on her face. Harry was mildly curious to know what the daily rant would encompass but was secretly hoping that she would get distracted and fly away to bother someone else first.

“Mr Potter,” she began in a dubiously pleasant tone upon her arrival, “I believe there must have been some miscommunication yesterday. You see, I teach a class, and you are supposed to be there, yet you were not. I had no note of your excused absence. Why is that?”

Harry adopted an innocent expression as he looked up at her, forcing his eyes wide open and clasping his hands in front of his chest. “Well, Madam Professor, I was summoned to the infirmary by Cyril. He has made the decision that I’m no longer to sit through your … lectures.”

“Now, Mr Potter, that simply won’t do.” She was keeping her composure fairly well, Harry thought, even if her attire was still hideous. “You’re required to take the course, everyone below sixth-year is. It’s part of the rules.”

Harry raised one eyebrow, choosing a slightly shocked expression, while switching his hands to a defensive gesture. “Really? I never knew that! Is the requirement over when you take your O.W.L. or when your year is over?”

Her face twitched ever so slightly, but she kept her smile in place. “The rules are quite specific. All students below sixth-year, Mr Potter, are to take the core curriculum.”

“I see. That’s certainly a problem. Sadly, in this case, Arts Madam, I must refer you to my Mentor.” Harry tried for a contrite look, but Ginny kicking his shin under the table told him it was falling somewhat short of the mark. “As soon as Cyril tells me to return to your class, I will, but until then, I simply cannot. I cannot legally disobey his orders.”

Umbridge stood there glowering at Harry for a moment before turning and walking stiffly to the Head Table. By the time she was some ten feet away, Ginny was laughing quietly while Fred and George were busily scribbling down something.

“You know, Harry,” Neville offered quietly from Ginny’s other side, “if you keep poking her with a stick, she’s liable to bite.”

“I should be so lucky,” Harry said with a wistful sigh. “Then I could get her fired, after I get a tetanus shot.”

“Harry,” Hermione cut in, “she may not be a very good teacher, but she does deserve some respect. She had to have been hired by Professor Dumbledore for a reason.”

Harry glanced at Hermione’s earnest look with open surprise. “Do you mean to tell me you don’t know why she’s here?”

Hermione’s expression took on a bright-eyed gaze that was disturbingly keen. “Of course we do. She made a speech, after all, when she arrived. You weren’t here at dinner, though, when she did that.”

“Really? What did she tell you?”

Hermione’s smile faltered ever so slightly, but her eyes had a twinkle eerily reminiscent of the headmaster. “Well, she didn’t come right out and say it, but it basically was a speech about revamping the lessons and being sure that the teachers are up to snuff. I’m not sure it’s really needed, but she does have the Minister’s ear.”

Harry sighed. “Yes, she has the Minister’s ear and probably a few other things as well. Dumbledore didn’t hire her, Hermione. He didn’t even want her here, but Fudge foisted her off on him with some silly rule wrangling. She’s a spy, nothing more, and a rather poor one at that.”

Hermione looked doubtful, but Harry was surprised Ron was nodding. “Figures,” the redhead offered quietly. “She couldn’t teach binning, let alone Defence. I can’t imagine we’ll do well this year.”

Fred slapped that table lightly, gathering everyone’s attention. “Too right, Ron, too right. We were just talking about that on the way down here. We ought to talk to Dumbledore about it, and see if he can get a decent teacher in here.”

Harry was uncertain what precisely was taking place among the siblings, but the sudden statement from Ron and the non-reaction from the others left him feeling uneasy. Before he could try to understand exactly what was going on, however, there was a loud choking noise coming from the Head Table, accompanied by breaking glass.

Umbridge was flailing about in her chair, her tongue lolling out at an impressively swollen two or three feet at least. The “enhanced” collection of jam pots, replete in their dainty metal holder, were on the floor, shattered in pieces. A large bagel was also on the floor, one prominent bite taken out of it.

As Harry watched Umbridge thrash about for a moment, he saw Fred and George adopt surprised expressions out of the corner of his eye. By the time Flitwick arrived from the other end of the table, the woman was also slowly morphing into a credible likeness of Fudge. Overall, Harry had to admit he was impressed. It was a very elaborate mixture to set off two distinct pranks and not have either potion interfere with the other, which would cause unstable side effects.

“Very nice,” he said quietly, “two potion pranks that were stable when mixed and surely odourless as well. I’m impressed.”

Fred clucked his tongue slightly. “Yes, well, the tongue was supposed to reach the floor. Still needs a bit of work, I’d say.”

George, being the one in front and thus blocking the view of Fred from the Head Table, said nothing but nodded his head slightly.

“You pranked the staff?!” Hermione hissed. “What were you thinking! You could get into all kinds of trouble!”

Ginny was laughing with one fist stuffed in her mouth when Harry turned to regard Hermione. “Oh? Well, I don’t mind. After all, Fred and George weren’t the ones that delivered it. What are the Staff going to do? Give me more detention?” Harry’s smile was accompanied by an exaggerated eye rolling. “Really, Hermione, try to find some time to relax, would you?”

When Harry turned back around, Flitwick was helping Umbridge back to her feet, and she was glaring harshly at everyone in the Hall that was laughing. When her eyes landed on Harry, however, he knew he was in for the entire blame.

“Potter! You did this!”

Harry was amused to note that any pretence of civility was quite dead.

“Nope, sorry. I quite wish I had thought of it. That was really a nice touch there at the end, that whole Fudge imitation. The bow in your hair wasn’t quite the right colour to match his bowler, though.”

Glowering and visibly fuming, the woman stormed down from behind the Head Table, with Flitwick in tow, and Harry braced himself for a disturbingly loud verbal assault of baseless accusations. He was pleasantly surprised, however, when Umbridge never had the chance to vent her bile, as Professor McGonagall arrived before she could reach his seat.

“Is there some sort of problem here, Filius?” Her tone was cool, but it conveyed all the expectations of immediate compliance that Harry was learning to appreciate.

“Just a little prank or two, it would seem, Minerva,” Flitwick said with a wide smile and a cheery tone. “Pretty nice magic, really.”

“I see. And is Mr Potter somehow involved in this?”

Harry looked McGonagall in the eye and held out one hand as though swearing an oath. “I will honestly state that I never knowingly touched anything that could have been or was used in any prank this morning, Professor McGonagall. Moreover, I had no knowledge of any plans to prank the Dark Madam, nor do I have the knowledge of how the pranks that did take place this morning were devised.”

Harry was certain that the stern woman could understand that there were quite a few things he had left unspecified, but at least the form had been met. “Very well, then. Everyone, please return to your breakfast. This morning’s entertainment is over, isn’t it, Mr Potter? Messrs Weasley?”

Harry opted to say nothing. He simply nodded his head in an overt display of submission. Fred and George, on the other hand, just winked at the professor before they turned back to their breakfasts.

As the conversation slowly resumed, Harry noticed that the Great Hall was nearly full of students eating breakfast. There was still a virtual void between where the group he sat with ended and where anyone else was sitting, but the consistent addition of Hermione, Ron, and Neville was the first step in slightly expanding the boundary. For the moment, Harry was content to let things stabilize, and he was sure his mentors would agree with that.

Harry had finished his breakfast and was listening to the banter between the friends and siblings. The sweeping rush of wings filled the Great Hall as the various postal owls arrived, streaming through the special openings near the ceiling. Knowing that he was overdue for a response of some kind from the Weasley matriarch, Harry made sure to scan the incoming deliveries for anything overtly magical. Given that everyone around him had stopped talking and was more or less doing the same thing was a silent testament to the spirit of the moment. He thought he saw money change hands between the twins and Ron, but he was unwilling to take his eyes off the birds to check.

When all of the owls had apparently arrived and delivered their letters, he looked back to see the group around him fairly despondent. “It’s got to be something good, eh?” Fred muttered finally. “It’s been two days, that’s enough time for almost anything.”

Ginny chuckled quietly. “And that’s what’s so fun about it. It could be anything. By the by, Harry, you really don’t know what she’s been trying to tell you. Maybe you should just accept one to find out?” Her winsome smile was only slightly marred by the tiredness lingering in her expression.

“Right,” Harry laughed, “I’ll do just that. Assuming I’m not turned into a newt, everyone here can enjoy your mum screaming at me in a voice fit to raise the dead.”

Hermione, however, had a glint in her eye. “Surely you admit to being curious about what she might have to say, Harry?”

Harry see-sawed one hand in the air. “M’eh. Curiosity is all well and good, but I’m not an advocate of being curious about things already known to be unpleasant.”

“But you use the Bubble-Head Charm to block the sound. Why not accept one while standing inside a really large Bubble? Then you could know and not be subjected to the, er, ridicule.”

Harry laughed at Hermione’s logic. “Right, right, but Mrs Weasley could just as easily write it all in a normal letter, now couldn’t she? If she did that, I’d accept it and see what she has to say, but trying to force your thoughts on someone else? No thanks. It’s the principle involved, Hermione — well, that and I rather like my hearing.”

George seemed to be in complete disagreement based on his frown. “There’s no fun in just sending a letter, Harry. Half the fun of magic is doing something weird. What about a singing letter? Or one that spoke in Gregorian Chant? How about one that only spoke in riddles?”

Harry smirked slightly. “That could be fun. You get your mum to send me a non-Howler message, and I’ll listen to it. No explosions, no hexes, nothing like that — but the format of delivery, sure, I’m game. But you have to talk her into it.”

Ginny was rubbing her hands together in excitement. “I’ll do it! I’ll write to Mum and send it off at lunch.”

“You know you’ve completely set yourself up, right, Harry?” Neville’s quiet voice was laced with humour, though Harry thought he could even detect a hint of expectation in it.

Harry waved the notion off, although he was honest enough with himself to admit to a mixture of curiosity and perhaps a bit of dread over what might arrive next. As the Great Hall slowly emptied with people heading for their first lessons, Harry walked with the group on foot while the twins merrily took off on their brooms to Transfiguration. Harry was content to walk in silence, listing to the others discuss possible lesson plans and the upcoming Quidditch season.

Following the other students into the Charms classroom, however, left Harry milling about with everyone else. Professor Flitwick was standing at the head of the classroom, but all of the desks and chairs were missing, leaving only a wide open space.

As Flitwick waved them all inside, Harry glanced around before he noticed something flashing in his peripheral vision. Glancing up, he nudged Ginny and Neville, motioning them to look as well. Harry was amused to see the desks and chairs all inverted and stuck on the vaulted ceiling, as though the students were milling around on the ceiling rather than the floor.

“Good, good, everyone’s here,” the professor said while walking back and forth in rapid staccato steps, his mind clearly racing. “Gather round, gather round!”

Flitwick was almost hopping in his excitement. “Today we’re having a practical exercise lesson, and we’re going to borrow a page from our young Mr Potter.”

Most of the people glanced briefly at Harry, but he ignored the reactions from the mix of Ravenclaws and Gryffindors. Ginny’s look in particular conveyed a world of questions about the sanity of their professor.

“Mr Potter, would you be kind enough to come up here, please?”

Somewhat resigned to being put on display, Harry thought he might have a bit of fun with the Ravenclaws. They were, after all, supposed to be the brainy ones in the castle, if Floppy was even faintly acting as the Hat claimed it was. He moved to the front of the classroom and stood next to the professor, who once again impressed Harry with his short stature, given the amount of raw presence the man exuded.

When he caught Hermione’s gaze, he smirked at her scowl, then he adopted his best game face. “How may I be of assistance, sir?”

“Previously you did an excellent demonstration of control and switching from one charm to another.” Flitwick held out a small, soft ball in one hand. “I’d like you to repeat that demonstration for the class, please, as we will all be practicing the combination of Summoning and Banishing Charms for today’s lesson.”

Harry paused to see faintly surprised expressions on everyone’s face. Noticing how the Ravenclaws were clumped together, Harry decided this was an opportune moment to exercise the curiosity the Headmaster had warned him of, no matter how obscure the warning had been when delivered.

“Certainly, sir.” Harry scooped up the ball, tossed it in the air quickly, and then began a rapid series of Banishing and Summoning Charms, entirely silent. Ignoring the frowns from the students, Harry began humming faintly as he moved the ball around the room.

“Mr Potter, if you would say the words, please?”

Harry thought the professor was fully aware of what he was doing and, if the man’s tone was any indicator, approved fully. “Sorry, sir, forgot,” Harry said with a smile, never missing a beat with the charm switching. “Ding.” Banish. “Dong.” Summon. “The.” Banish. “Wicked.” Summon. “Witch.” Banish. “Is.” Summon. “Dead.” Banish.

“Mr Potter, the proper words, if you would be so kind?”

Harry was now convinced the professor was amused. “Ohhh,” Harry said while continuing to bounce the ball. “Right, awfully sorry. Accio! Expellus! Accio! Expellus! Accio! Expell—”

“Excellent, Mr Potter. Please stop now, thank you.”

Harry silently Summoned the ball back to his hand, and dropped it in the outstretched hand of the professor. “Take five points for, ah, your House, Mr Potter.”

Harry sauntered back to his original position between Neville and Ginny. Neville rolled his eyes at Harry while Ginny had her gaze locked on Hermione’s expression, which Harry could only describe as ecstatic.

“Now, what Mr Potter has demonstrated requires quite a bit of control and focus. As such, it’s a perfect exercise for everyone to improve their magic skills. I have a soft ball for everyone — no, not you, Mr Potter, you’re free to please either help others or quietly do your own work on other assignments — and I expect each of you to practice this.”

As Flitwick wandered around passing out the balls, Harry sat over in a corner and dug out the Transfiguration Theory book that McGonagall had loaned him. Breaking the Sticking Charm on one of the chairs, Harry floated it down from the ceiling and settled in for a comfortable couple of hours for reading.

“Please note that the balls are soft so that you will not hurt others or yourself — careful there, Mr Weasley — as you practice.”

It only took Harry a few moments to realise he needed to set a shield to reflect anything thrown at him, such as one of the many balls flying about the room. He smirked, however, at Ginny, whose look had gone from artful innocence into a scowl when the barrier bounced the ball away on the second “accidental” Banishing Charm that would have caused it to impact on Harry’s forehead.

Tue, 12 Sep 1995, 10:02

As they filed into the Transfiguration classroom, Harry decided he was going to force Ginny’s progress along the magic skills front. “Right, you’re sitting with me, Ginny.” Harry shot a glance at Neville. “Sorry, Neville, but I promised to help Ginny fix a couple of problems she’s been having lately.”

Neville just smiled as he headed for a seat with the Ravenclaw student Hermione had been previously sitting with. “I heard about that,” he offered quietly. “I’m glad she’s the one getting the help, not me.” As Neville passed Harry, he leaned slightly closer and whispered a parting comment. “And I’m glad you have to deal with her anger, not me.”

Harry smirked at the thought of all the students afraid of little Ginny Weasley. Dropping into the seat behind the two-person table, Harry shot a bemused look at her, ignoring her obvious confusion over what he was smiling about. “Why is it so many people are afraid of the Big Bad Ginny?”

Ginny frowned sharply at Harry before glaring at the back of Neville’s head. “You’ll find out, Harry, if you keep it up.”

Before he could fire a retort, however, McGonagall called the class to order and handed out boxes of mice and trays of snails to each table. Their only direction was to continue practicing the Vanishing spells on the creatures, and if they were successful, to help their partners master the technique more quickly. The year was long, and O.W.L.s were coming no matter how far away they seemed. Harry tuned out the several minutes of extraneous warnings and dire predictions of problems from the professor, and he focused instead on observing how she moved.

McGonagall was quite tall for a woman. Her attire merely enhanced both her height and her thin build, but when she walked, there was a hint of power and grace that was hard to characterise from her physical stature. The woman moved with the grace of a long-time ballet performer but the authority and self-assurance of a tiger on the hunt. Her movements were deceptive in that she never appeared to be hurrying, yet she always travelled at a noticeably quick pace. In all, he was quite curious what she had done before becoming a professor.

Ginny’s sharp nudge in his ribs jarred him out of his analysis, and she smirked briefly as he realised that the lecture was over and students were now practicing magic. “Isn’t she a little old for you to be looking at like that?” Ginny’s whisper carried overtones of delight, probably for catching Harry in a perceived daydream.

Harry shot her an amused look before he returned in kind. “Now now, Ginny, there’s no need to be jealous of every woman I happen to notice.” When her eyes flashed, he nodded his head slightly to warn her that McGonagall was approaching. Her eyes darted to the side and back, narrowing as they focused on Harry again in silence.

“So are you going to show me you can Vanish the mouse?” Harry asked at a normal volume.

McGonagall drifted to a stop at their desk. “Oh? Miss Weasley, can you? I had not realised you succeeded in the last class.”

Ginny was looking at Harry with something bordering on active antipathy, which he ignored. “C’mon, Ginny, you said it was just a matter of willpower and concentration. Let’s see it.”

Glaring at Harry for another moment, she drew the pattern in the air with precise motions as she clearly succeeded in Vanishing the mouse with a well enunciated “Evanesco!” Blinking at the disappearance, Ginny shot Harry a look of complete victory.

McGonagall ignored the byplay entirely, although Harry was certain she had understood the various facial expressions exchanged. “Excellent, Miss Weasley. Five points to Gryffindor for your performance under pressure. Now, Mr Potter, would you be so good as to Vanish this hedgehog?” With a disturbingly casual motion, the professor deposited said animal in the box Ginny had just emptied.

Harry was tempted to raise some objections, but the smirk he would swear was on the professor’s lips, not to mention Ginny’s look of glee, gave him no choice. He had learned only very rudimentary cleaning charms years ago but had never worked on the Vanishing family of magic with living creatures. Unlike his classmates, he had spent almost zero time practicing any of his lessons-based exercises outside of class.

Taking a deep breath, Harry concentrated on the state he needed to work the basic cleaning charms, reflecting on the minor differences between those and the fully generic Vanishing spell. Making the same precise motions Ginny had earlier, albeit in smaller gestures, Harry silently released the spell and was rewarded with Vanishing the hedgehog and the box it was sitting in. Seeing his success, Harry immediately winked at McGonagall while doing his best to keep the smirk off his face and ignore Ginny’s sudden scowl.

“I am impressed, Mr Potter, but you should not have Vanished the box as well. That will be five points for, ah, House Potter then. Do practice more on your control.” With a few taps of her wand, the box, hedgehog, and mouse were all back on the desk. She scooped up the hedgehog and moved away. Harry wanted to laugh outright when he saw her stop in front of Hermione and Ron, depositing the hedgehog on their desk.

When he looked back at Ginny, she was still scowling slightly. In response, Harry winked at her, too, before he flicked his wand and quietly spoke aloud for her benefit, “Silencio!” Ginny’s scowl became blatant outrage when she realised no sound was coming from her working mouth.

“Since you can Vanish your mouse, Ginny, do it silently. After all, you already know that saying the words isn’t necessary. You’re just too used to hearing your voice, so you need to get used to doing things nonverbally.” Harry paused while she continued to glare at him. “Just think if you could have cast a silent Finite earlier this morning, then you could have cushioned the blow, eh? Learning this skill will speed up your other lessons.”

After another moment of staring, she finally turned back to the box holding a mouse and the small tray holding three snails. With one last glance at Harry, she began repeated efforts to Vanish the creatures, starting with the snails. Watching her only for the first two tries, which yielded no results whatsoever, Harry pulled out the book on Transfiguration Theory that McGonagall had lent him during the first lesson and resumed reading it.

A sudden crack! near Harry’s elbow during the practice session caused him to turn immediately while rising, as he trained both wands on the space beside him, ready to fling curses and worse at the sound of someone Apparating. When he saw a small house-elf standing there, he put away his wands and sat back down, slowly becoming aware of the nearly complete silence in the classroom.

The little house-elf was staring at Harry with wide eyes, twisting his poor hands in a dry washing motion. “Master Potter, sir?” The voice was squeaky, uncertain, and the elf kept looking about at all the students with obvious discomfort.

“Yes?” Harry asked gently, understanding that the elf was all but terrified.

“Madam Pomfrey’s respects, Master Potter, sir, but she sent me with a message, sir.” So saying, the elf pulled a folded note out of his tea cosy and tried handing it to Harry, although Harry did not reach to take it immediately. As soon as Harry’s concentrated vision revealed it was ordinary parchment, lacking any aura, he took the note from the elf. Almost instantly the elf disappeared again with a soft crack!

Harry could hear the footsteps of Professor McGonagall approaching in the suddenly silent classroom. Ignoring the tread of the woman’s feet, Harry quickly flipped open the note and scanned the contents.

Mr Potter —

Professor Dumbledore has awoken. Both Cyril and he are requesting your immediate presence. Please join us promptly in the private room.

P. Pomfrey

Harry let out a slow breath he had not realised he was holding, folding the note back in half. When McGonagall came to a stop in front of his desk, he silently handed it to her. Glancing at Ginny, he caught an impression of open curiosity on her face, although he was uncertain if that was because she had or had not read the note over his shoulder. With a flick of his wand, he released the Silencing Charm on her throat and gathered his materials, stuffing them back into the bag.

When he was ready, he looked up at McGonagall and received a fractional nod of assent. With a cursory wave to the others, Harry left the classroom and hurried toward the hospital wing, once again irritated that he had left his broom back in the suite of rooms he shared with his mentor.

The infirmary was empty, although he could hear noises coming from the back of the room where Dumbledore had been moved. He was emphatically not looking forward to the next conversation, as not only would it be yet one more rehashing of recent events, but he would also need to spend some time explaining his own actions. On the other hand, Dumbledore had more than a few actions of his own to explain. Taking a deep breath, Harry quietly opened the door leading into the private area.

Harry stood there in the doorway, watching the magic rolling around the headmaster’s body for a moment. It was a pool of power, rippling and sliding, first one vibrant colour then another. It was nothing short of breathtaking to behold, the beauty of the man’s aura giving no hint of the deadly skill with which it could be wielded. Harry had no idea how long he stood there before Cyril looked over and spotted him.

“Ah, Harry, do come in,” Cyril called from where he stood by the Headmaster’s side. Dumbledore was propped up in the bed, a mound of pillows behind his back. Madam Pomfrey was hovering by his side, doing something with a collection of potions and some instruments Harry would surely never be able to identify.

The twinkle in Dumbledore’s eyes was missing, Harry realised, and he thought the man looked nothing so much as very old and very tired. Where his hair had been a mix of grey and silver, it was now pure silver. His mouth was set in a grim line, as though he was in pain, and his right hand was firmly gripping the railing on the edge of the bed. The heavily bandaged stump of his left arm was lying across the man’s chest.

“Headmaster,” Harry said, while staying precisely where he was, “I’m sorry for this.” Ignoring the look of surprise on everyone’s faces, Harry’s silent Stupefy! left Dumbledore slumped unconscious in the bed.

A/N:

I would like to personally thank Professor Scroll. I've had some on-going issues with the policies and posting at SIYE, and after some discussion, we have reached an accord such that I no longer have issues with continuing my work here as long as the new policies work out. So, thanks Professor Scroll for your time and understanding.

Please note, I've re-uploaded all of the first 22 chapters to match the 'polished' version just recently completed at PS.net. No plot details were changed.

A big thank you to my genius betas who have valiantly strived to make this story better, despite my crafty attempts to make it incomprehensible. So, immeasurable thanks to cwarbeck and Chreechree. Thanks to Reg, Lathac and random others for their aid with Brit-picking, to Sovran for a sanity check plus tweaks, and Sherylyn for her polishing touches before it gets uploaded.

For those that like to send me little notes asking me to hurry up and update, please don’t. I’m glad you’re so interested in the story, but Real Life exists in the adult world. Until the next update, patience is recommended. As stated previously, this story will not be abandoned. (Well, as long as I don’t get hit by a bus or something.)