Summary: A gift from Sirius at end of Year 3 causes Harry to learn about darkness of Marauders and more importantly of his parents. Now follow Harry as he struggles with Academics, Love, Lust, Dark Wizards and his ever growing addiction to Dark Arts. Reasonably Strong Dark Arts Harry! No slash! Alive Sirius! Neutral Dumbledore! Ratings will go up for violent and sexual themes.
Pairing: Harry Potter x Fleur x Tonks
Secondary pairings up to readers.
Authors- Atlanrom (5161800)
SevenKings (5682997)
Disclaimer: Listen well and listen all, we own Jackshit. Meaning no property of J.K. Rowlings, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoat Books or Warner Bros. Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Fuck Atlanrom can't even afford the fucking gasoline for his tank.( SK: I'm too poor to own my own apartment, that should give you an idea of how much I mooch off of others. At least, I help in keeping the place clean.)
Chapter Four: Final Preparations
Friday
17th of June, 1994
Evening, Diagon Alley
The duo had hurriedly escaped from that place. Sirius was too freaked out at meeting a creature that he had thought existed only in the fairy tales and Harry was simply too stunned. The creature hadn't even been noticeable when he had entered. He didn't dare call her a women or witch, for she was something far too different. But under the haze of dark magic, it had changed.
Harry Potter was nearly fourteen; his fourteenth birthday was not even half a month away. Add to the fact that he already had some sexual experience and it was inevitable that he was not a stranger to the emotion of lust. But what had seemed like lust in his post Quidditch trysts with the Gryffindor chaser, were now but a pale imitation like a cheap camera clicked photograph of the real thing.
He could feel it. Unlike light magic which was forced to fuse with emotions, his dark magic was lapping up in his lust like a drought victim lapped water and he couldn't do a damn thing to stop it. Fighting darkness that plagued the world outside was easy. Fighting darkness that plagued the world inside? Not so much.
Logically Harry knew that he would have been empathizing with the dark wizards, if things were different but now? Now he couldn't gather even a shred of his willpower to summon empathy. He absently tried to summon the happier memories. He would have been content if he couldn't have summoned the memories but unfortunately, Harry's dark magic finally realised the need to express, just why people fell prey to the darker aspects of magic.
His mind instinctively went to his Patronus memories. Dark magic was faster and had corrupted them, seemingly decades before he even thought of them. What had once been a source of pride, happiness and curiosity was now one of lust, possessiveness and domination.
That was the most dangerous aspect of dark magic. It was the very nature of human beings, to be more susceptible to the darkness within. Why were humans capable of remembering bad memories far longer than they remember good memories? Perhaps human nature. Even now, the dark magic was shifting Harry's outlook at various memories of his life. A fact that Harry noticed. Ever since he had mastered the Patronus, he measured the worth of a memory. It was a really simple and instinctive process; he thought of memory and simply saw how it affected his magic. A nifty if somewhat useless trick.
It was this technique that allowed him to notice how fast his consciousness was being rewritten. Harry could already tell that something was different since he had never felt this confident before. It was like armies could come and he could fight them all. Additionally, despite no longer being able to access any happier thoughts was not even bothering him. A fact that shouldn't be possible since he knew that normally he would have freaked out.
"Is there a compulsion on me?" Harry asked in a low tone to his companion. But unlike before there was a slight ordering tone to it. The eyes of his godfather widened, before they narrowed in contemplation and ignored the question. Sirius interjected his thoughts.
"The dark magic. It is encouraging the cardinal sins that are present – Wrath, greed, pride, envy, sloth, lust and gluttony. Whichever you are susceptible to. In the warshack, there are books "Oasfea Occlumentaria" and "Legimens Legimenta". Read them, along with "Legal Compendium of Mind Magics."" Saying no more, Sirius led them to Ollivander Wand Shop.
Harry, upon listening to it, tried to sort through the emotional mess that he was suffering from. Wrath was there in disturbingly great quantities for no apparent reason. It was as if he had just realised that how much world screwed him over. Greed was there but not much. Pride was overflowing and so was lust. Thankfully envy, sloth and gluttony were missing. Harry was surprised that sloth was missing but he guessed that emotions are a fickle thing.
Soon they were at Ollivander's. Harry having momentarily suppressing his emotion didn't bother with indulging his curiosity, knowing patience was key to control his dark magic for now. But it didn't make his struggle any easier, anyway.
What followed was basically a drama straight out of a flop movie from Hollywood. First Ollivander tried to scare them, like before. When that failed, he tried to awe them with his actually impressive memory of wands followed by asking what they were here for. Sirius asked for a spare wand for both of them as well as wand holsters and wand care kits.
His new wand was powerful. 15 inches of a decaying elder Bonsai tree along with heartstrings of chimera was a very powerful combination but it sadly was only three quarters as compatible as his old one. A difference that the wandmaker assured him would decay with time. Harry was completely blank at the obviously sinister origins of his wand. A chimera wasn't what would you call "light". Neither was a decaying tree. Harry didnt wanted to think about its implication. After having the trace applied and paperwork completed, Harry equipped his wand holster made of enchanted Hungarian Horntail's hide and stacked his wands, one on each hand.
They didn't bother with books since his trunk was connected with Flourish and Blotts and for more needs, there were books in warshack. Harry purposefully ignored the books and artefacts that had been given to him by the vile thing in Burgin and Burks. That done, Harry and his godfather made a brief stop at the pet shop to pick up treats.
The apothecary was next and Harry ordered the Slytherin kit. Sirius wondered what the hell that was. The morbid atmosphere was relaxed when Harry relayed how the scion of the Malfoy family had blown a well kept secret of slytherins to smithereens just for singing his own praises. Harry briefly wondered about purchasing the kits for Hermione and Ron but he decided not to. Ron wasn't the type to take charity while Hermione was smart enough to figure it out. The last assumption was a sceptical one and Harry's dark magic was responsible for that one in no small amounts.
That was just nature of dark magic. Pure dark magic was always meaningless destruction. Unlike other magics, it always tends to cause chaos without limits. Despite Harry having no problem with Hermione, his magic was creating problems. Why? Just because it could.
Then the presence of Sirius Black came in handy, who may or may not have exchanged a galleon or ten with the owner of the store. A codeword later, many normal and few restricted potions may or may not have been transferred to his trunk's extra secure area. Harry couldn't tell anything since he hadn't seen anything. He was busy watching the clouds. One of the clouds looked like Professor Snape.
Ignoring the cloud that was shaped like a male phallus, they proceeded to Quidditch shop and Harry purchased a broom caring kit. As rich as he was, his Firebolt was one overpriced broom! And he would be damned if he didn't appreciate it!
Soon Harry was in the magical appliance shop where he purchased a portable ever filled fridge which would last him a year. But it was the 'order me anything' container so Harry thought it was worth it. Additionally it was cheap and could be filled for few hundred times whenever he wants. Harry also picked one of the Hogwarts beverage cups. The cup would serve any and all non-alcoholic drinks. Harry swore a Marauder oath that he wouldn't out Sirius for removing the alcohol limiter.
The student cups were basically an anydrink cup with an alcohol limiter placed at it. The difference was that the anydrink cups weren't allowed Hogwarts. How Sirius knew about removing the alcohol limiter, Harry didn't know and once again swore that he would never out the Marauder.
It was followed by picking up an enchanted fountain pen that caught his fancy and wrote like the quills and never ran out of ink. Hermione had made a huge fuss over quills, tradition, rules and all that. Didn't prevent Harry from purchasing a spare pen. His spare pen was fancier than the original. While Hermione was struggling over quills, Harry had been sleeping, his work already done since he never wasted times on quills.
Three enchanted diaries that never ran out had just been added when an Arithmancy and runes calculator caught his fancy. He didn't know why he was purchasing the Arithmancy calculator but he picked up the master version. They were cheap as hell anyways so he picked up both the master and normal version of rune calculators too. Sirius never objected.
Harry made a mental note to check out the muggle telescopes. The Astronomy books he had purchased last year were much more fundamental at his passing rather than lectures of Professor Sinistra but they relied on very high scope of telescopes than the crap wizards had. The lessons that he attended at least.
Harry purchased a new letter box which was the new thing on market. Official owls, magazines and newspaper directly transferred here and could only be opened through it. Along with it came a catalogue that allowed him to continue his Daily Prophet and Quidditch Weekly. Harry added few new subscriptions too. The Quibbler because its rune puzzles were highly recommended, Wizards Weekly and most importantly a Playwizard subscription of his own. He needed his own porn and someone had a problem then they can respectively fuck off!
But alas, soon the time to say goodbye came. His dark magic was at least good for this thing. An emotional goodbye was not on his to-do list for today. So Harry merely nodded in Sirius' direction. Sirius nodded back, understandingly. The world twisted.
Now that he was apparating alone, Harry could feel the difference. The magical portal was forming on his back and summoning him. Generally the feeling should be a hook in navel but someone who understood the process like him, he could change the "hook" wherever he wants. In Harry's case, the hook was forming in middle of his spine. Harry was soon floating in between the dimensions. Infinite darkness filled his eyesight, only his destination appearing as the source of energy. With a mental nudge, his world was alighted in symbol and of their own accord moved to new position and settings. Harry completed it.
The world started again.
Harry landed in a crouch. While landing on his feet would have been preferable, it was better than landing on heap any day of the week. In his elation at having apparated, Harry never noticed Sirius Black apparating away, satisfied that his godson hadn't splinched himself.
The dark magic trying to corrupt his mind brought him out of his musing and he rushed back to the room. On his way, Harry pointed his wand at the library. His new chimera wand and incanted.
Accio Mind Arts
Scores of book rushed at him and Harry merely directed the wand to his enchanted moleskin pouch. Harry knew that he was carrying far more books than the three that Sirius recommended but Harry figured that he could handle it. For he didn't knew, just how far reaching this effect would be in future.
However Harry never noticed the fact that his magical trunk had remained opened and a book from it had also rushed at him. One of the books that the Dementoria had forcibly given him. Dark Arts and Mind Arts. Harry also never noticed about how exactly
In his room, Harry opened his pouch and took out the book. The three books were sorted out from the others but one book stood out from them. A book made out obviously from some sort of skin. Harry knew that something was wrong with him, the moment he looked at the book. He should have been disgusted by the realisation and thrown away the book. But now, his disgust was nonexistent. And his curiosity was overwhelming. With but a seconds wait, Harry opened the book.
Within two hours, Harry closed onto the last chapter of the book. Harry was amazed at himself. He had completed well over 200 pages of the book using just basics of Occlumency. But on the other hand, the book wasn't truly of 200 pages. In Harry's estimate, actually the book had barely 30 pages to its name and the rest was practice for mental snapping.
There were three types of Occlumency branches. Internal Occlumency which dealt with the actual brain processes. External Occlumency which dealt with people using Legimency/potions/charms or curses on him. And the medium Occlumency which dealt with arts that required both of the Occlumency. For example using Legimency on someone else.
Mental snapping was the oldest trick in the book of Internal Occlumency. It gave an illusion that people who used Occlumency had a photographic memory. What basically an Occlumens did was to cast an illusion over brain, so that brain looked over a photograph that the user had focussed on and imprinted it in memory. Unlike a true photographic memory, mental snapping was limited. It meant that there were only so many photos that could be imprinted on brain, in a day. Additionally it was a dark art, which required dark magic and hence out of reach of most people. Something to do with different nature of dark magic and how it interacts with mind.
Harry Potter had exhausted all his dark magic in imprinting three-fourth of the images. The book mostly was made of useful images that someone should memorise as a practice. Runes, formulas, Goblin rebellions etc. And when that hadn't been enough, he used his normal magic and coloured his dark. Harry knew that he could have finished the book later but something about book simply didn't allow him to stop.
Harry was both intrigued and disappointed by Occlumency. Mental snapping was the first mind magic he had seen, it was a powerful tool despite being draining. The most disappointing aspect was that it was cramming and not learning. While useful for cramming things like runes, it was useless if one needed to understand something like laws of transfiguration, charms etc.
But still it was only a beginner's trick and Harry was most interested in seeing what more this obscure branch of magic could do. External Occlumency had been one of hell of a surprise. The book said that all one had to do was to form a spherical shell of dark magic around the brain, taking care to leave no dark magic in the brain. The process took barely five seconds and Harry was sceptical over what protection a defence something this easy could provide.
The book said that for dark magic wielders, the game of invasion and defence of the mind was of strength. The more magic one had the more solid the defence was. Additionally unless one intended to delve into offensive magics of mind like Legimency, this defence would keep even masters of offense at bay for few seconds. And in that time, one could simply look away.
Legimency was of two types. Passive that allowed a person to detect lies, misdirection and falsehood. Active that allowed one to read mind but not like reading the book. Here the book became very complicated and Harry decided to leave Legimency for a while.
Within seconds of forming the dark shell, Harry could think more clearly. His thought process became normal again before blinding headache stuck. He had clearly abused his mental snapping ability. Not in any condition to study, Harry took a drink of nutrition potion and drifted off to sleep. Time to try the new trick in book. Lucid dreaming.
Lucid dreaming was one trick that was really, really fucked up. And totally useless in practical aspects. It basically allowed a person to take control of his dreams that weren't nightmares and despite extensive studies, this branch of magic had failed to provide some actual utility. It didn't prevent nightmares. It didn't allow one to become more familiar with mind. Sure it allowed a person to have an orgy with thirty seven women like Harry was doing but in the end of the day it was a dream. Next morning, Harry woke up and realised why exactly one shouldn't use this trick for fantasizing.
The dreaded morning wood. While Harry's mind was satisfied, little Harry had been distressed. And when little Harry was distressed, it decided to use its enormous metamorphmagus ability to distress Harry and to rip through Harry's favourite PJ's and salute the world. If waking up with a wooden pillar wasn't enough, the door opened.
"Harry wakey-wakey, its 10 o'...clock." At the end, the eyes of his godfather were twitching. This scene was getting increasingly familiar. Sirius took a deep breath, ignoring Harry's sputtering, but that didn't help. He stomped out but not before yelling.
"GOD DAMMINT HARRY! LOCK THE FUCKING ROOM, WHEN YOU ARE WANKING OFF!" What kind of man didn't lock the room, when wanking off? Snape was always ranting on about Harry being like his father. Perhaps the dickhead was spot on?!
Harry remain laid on his bed, too mortified to move. Somehow Harry knew that the scene would soon become even more awkward.
Just another day in paradise.
The situation was dispelled when Sirius Black pointed to Harry's packet of McDonald's fries. Harry took time to look at the symbol of McDonald's and his mind automatically drifted to the thing, he had learned last night.
In 1873, there had been a great hourglass explosion of sands of time when something went wrong. Nobody knew what happened or how it happened but all of the muggles had moved 20 years in future. It was only the nature of magical experiment that prevented muggles from realizing that they had seemingly gained 20 years of knowledge and research instantly from wizards' viewpoint.
The Department of Mystery had published a report last year, its research completed. A time loop had been created which had affected only the non magicals. The non magicals had gone further in knowledge in 20 years. It had only widened the differences in wizards and muggles. There were already things in existence, that shouldn't have been like cheap phones, internet and laptops.
Harry absentmindedly wondered about trying one of things before deciding that it was a future plan. Their breakfast done, Sirius decided to address the most important agenda of the day.
"So, should we begin you lessons of courtship?" Harry groaned out. It was going to be a long day. Sirius grinned nostalgically. He always thought that James would be doing this and he would have kids of his own. But that was life for you. Never goes according to plan. James was dead. Sirius was broken. Harry was already into dark magic. And the one man that should be dead was wandering the world in his quest of revenge.
"What's first?" Harry asked out wondering the first item on the plan. It was time to get this shit over with.
"First is your plan. What's your agenda? Do you want a full blown relationship? A casual hang up? A one night stand?" Harry for his part was surprised at seriousness. Despite what he had seen, Sirius never had seemed the wise type. Realizing that he had been asked a question, Harry decided to answer.
"I don't know. Can we learn as we go?" Harry answered honestly.
Sirius nodded and reassured Harry, "That's the proper approach to dating for first timers. Learn as you go on." That seemed to relax Harry."Later in life, if you learn properly, you will have much more clearer idea of what you want."
With a wave of his wand, Sirius effortlessly rearranged the room. Azkaban may have broken his body but his will and magic was stronger than ever. Harry watched in awe as Sirius did a levitation, transfiguration, animation and rearrangement of the room, simultaneously and without a word. Non-verbal Simultaneous casting was a post-mastery skill. Far above what Harry could hope to achieve for now.
Within moments, instead of a cosy living room, they were in a classroom with a chalkboard that said Dating 101. Harry made himself comfortable. This could be fun.
In a perfect imitation of Professor Mcgonnall, Sirius snapped his wand and animated the chalk which clearly wrote 'Rule No.1',"This is the most important of laws of dating. If a girl tells you to back off, she doesn't want you to try harder. So you back the fuck off, no exception."
That was enough; it set Harry off as he tried to imagine Mcgonnall saying 'back the fuck off'. Even Sirius smiled; clearly Harry had read the book on Occlumency. Dark magic tended to strip a man of laughter.
Sirius continued, "Seriously, if you destroy your first impression, try someone else. The girl is a ship that has sailed away." At Harry's nod, Sirius continued, "Rule no.2 – The signs. This is easily the hardest part of dating in practice. Girls unlike guys aren't expressive. You need to look for the subtle signs and interpret them, correctly. A girl looking towards you, what do you think she wants?"
Harry resisted the urge to blurt out that the girl could be interested. Obviously Sirius wanted him to think this through. So Harry took a moment and realized the logical answer, "It can mean a lot of things." Realizing the proud smile on Sirius, Harry continued, "While she could be interested, she could be thinking I am stupid, she could think I resemble someone, she could be looking at me and trying to remember who I resemble."
"A hundred points to Gryffindor!" Sirius exclaimed."Listen Harry, most women are so less expressive that they have a single sign for hundreds of mental processes. Even a master dater can go wrong and even a masturbator like you could go right. It's a matter of chance and practice." Sirius ducked to avoid the blue ball curse from Harry. What the hell were they teaching at Hogwarts?
"Where did you learn that one?" Sirius was intrigued. His godson was one oddball of confusion and mysteries.
"Fred and George pranked me in year one. I wanted to prank them back. On an unrelated note, they never pranked me again." Harry struggled to maintain a straight face. That had been hilarious, watching the Weasely cringe whenever Harry smiled at them.
Tears of pride and joy came in the eyes of the former Marauder. His godson was so Maraudery! With a capital M! Ignoring the fact that Maraudery wasn't a word, Sirius continued.
"Rule No.3 Dating is not a serious thing. Everyone gets rejected once in a while. Losing is a part of life. The important thing is getting up after falling down. If you fall down, the world will not wait for you. It will walk over you." Sirius had a sad tone while giving the piece of wisdom. Harry had an inclination that Sirius was still mourning over world walking him over while he was in Azkaban.
12 years in Azkaban was bound to have left scars. You can't just shrug off something like that. Sirius just didn't let it overwhelm him. With a swish of his wand, Sirius summoned a bag of...books? WTF?!
"Harry, a sense of humour is attractive, so learn a couple of jokes."Eyes of the convict twinkled. Harry's trouble meter flared. Something was going to happen.
At this point, Harry was seriously getting a bad feeling. Sirius, vacations and books just smelled of trouble. His trouble meter went to level eleven when the book was passed on to him. The title read Lemon Drops by Albus Dumbledore. It was a very famous book that Harry had wanted to read but didn't had time. One of the most sold book in the world, it already had sold over 4 million copies. So it wasn't a stretch of imagination that despite great effort on his part, dark magic began leaking out when he turned the page.
Harry read out loud, "Some magicians can walk on water; Harry Potter can swim on land! Holy mother of god! What the fuck is this!" This, this was the favourite book of everyone! They had made him the Chuck Norris of the bloody Wizarding world!
He flipped the pages, when he heard snicker of his godfather and read another section, "Harry Potter went to Gringotts as Harry Potter and came out as Harry Potter-Gryffindor-Ravenclaw-Slytherin-Hufflepuff-Hogwarts-Emyrs-Nobody-Gives-A-Shit."
His godfather was flat out laughing but Harry trudged on, "Azkaban is a prison to most guys. But it's the finest institute of wizardry to an illegally incarcerated Harry Potter."
Sirius was hysterical and said,"Section 101." And resumed laughing.
Harry flipped the pages
(starts)
Harry Potter looked into the eyes of his enemy. His enemy looked back with nothing but love. Even though his enemy was a total greasy git, the age of his father and a guy who probably wanked off to verbally abusing him, Harry held great love for his Professor Greasy Git. It was a little known fact but Harry Potter was into really weird things. He was masochist who loved suffering Cruciatus, mind rapes and girls who looked like his mom. While it's true that men like women who were like their mother, Harry Potter was totally after his mother's genetic clone. However, his biggest fantasy was flopping around uselessly even though he had a Dark Lord hell bent on killing him instead of doing something useful like learn how to duel or something.
"Potter! Marry me!" That was the voice of another long time enemy Mraco Dalfoy, an ugly blonde guy, who was obviously male veela. Now some may point out that there are nothing like male veela in the world but they exist because...because I said so.
Harry Potter was in dilemma. What to do? Either he could hold a grudge against people who tried to kill him and hurt him or not to. In the end Harry realised that he should let go of his grudges. How would people screw him over if he held grudges and acted on them?!
(over)
Harry Potter fainted.
Author's note
Hope you enjoyed it, Kindly leave a review. Reviews are the fuel that accelerates the car of fanfiction.
(SK: Unfortunately, I'm going to be gone for awhile but that doesn't mean the fic is going on on suspension. Give a big round of applause to Atlanrom for picking up my slack.)
