Bound By Brotherhood Forged in Fire Part II: The Power The Dark Lord Knows Not
Chapter 3: Theory
A month had gone past since Harry and Neville began their training. They were both progressing quickly. Harry had satisfactorily mastered his control of his raw magic and was experimenting on his own with long distance magical transport and raw shields, as well as testing the combination of his magic with his shadomency as he called it.
Neville was making leaps and bounds in his pyrokinesis, from the sword of flame Neville progressed to guided fireballs, he had made a joke of juggling the fireballs one day after training, they ended up landing in his hair. If not for his mutant abilities Neville would have been fried bald.
As well as training in his abilities Harry was also reading several of the magical theory books Sirius had gotten from the Black Library at Grimmauld Place, along with some that Agatha had provided from the library at the Salem Magical Academy. After studying the theory behind the spells he had used with a wand Harry found it far easier to replicate the effects with raw magic.
Kurt and Bobby entered the control room of the Danger Room, planning to run a training Sim with the others before the final X program tests in October. Only to find that there was already a program running and Logan was sitting with his feet up in the chair.
"Too late Frostbite" Logan grunted as he smelled Bobby enter the control room "The firecracker and the wiz've been at it for twenty minutes"
"You recording it?" Kurt asked upon spotting Kate sitting in the second chair
"Yeah" the junior Logan replied with an evil grin "It'll be great for movie night"
"'Course it'll be great" Bobby chuckled "Wraith and Inferno always go high gear when they're training solo"
"It's cause of that Voldermort guy Chuck told the team about" Logan grunted as another flash issued from the room below "Both Harry and Neville have reasons to go after the bastard"
"Yeah" Kurt said "Voldermort murdered Harry's parents, tried to murder him, more or less got his Godfather sent to prison, and essentially ruined his life, and one of his goons tortured Neville's parents to insanity when he was two"
"Now that's just cold" Bobby said "What kind of freak show tries to murder a kid?"
"We're not the only people with enemies Ice" Kate sighed "We all have our wars to fight in one way or another"
"Yeah but it's still a shitty life" Kurt said as he ported out.
In the Danger Room below Harry and Neville were hard at training. In the week since they had satisfactorily they had taken to going all out in their solo training sessions. At first it was just duelling, but over the last month that had changed to the full scale war zone the two mutant wizards were creating.
Neville roared as another of his fire streams flew past Harry as he glided left. A large translucent silver sphere of light encircling the Boy-Who-Lived as he floated several inches off the floor.
"For cryin out loud Wraith would you at least let me hit you once?" Neville groaned
"We've been at this for a week Inferno" Harry replied as he fired a bolt of magic at his sparing partner from his left hand "And nothing the institute throws at me has been able to pierce the barrier"
"What about Lava?" Neville asked "When did you step into a volcano?"
"There's a thin line between demented and insane fire flea" Harry laughed "And I haven't crossed over yet"
"Let's try with the weapons again" Neville said "I'm in the mood for trying to cut your head off"
Harry smiled as he floated to the ground and drew the shield into himself and said "Bring it on" then a faint silver aura surrounded him and two spheres of black light appeared in his hands "First contact wins"
Neville smiled across the holographic grass field they were fighting on and closed his eyes.
Then with a yell a pillar of flame surrounded him, bathing the teens body in a firestorm.
And after a few moments the flames faded and Neville stood, his muscles bulging slightly against the material of his training uniform, then a moment later Neville closed his right fist around the sphere of flame that floated just off the palm and the sphere of flame lengthened and changed from a sphere, to a four foot long flaming broadsword. And issued a battle cry as he charged the raven haired teen opposite him.
Harry smiled as he closed his fists around the two black spheres, which changed into a pair of blacktwo and a halffoot long swords, similar to sabres.
Neville made the first attack, with a crippling overhead blow that could have cleaved a man in two
But Harry snapped up the sword in his right hand and intercepted the strike and the game was on.
Harry pushed the sword away and spun around to bring his left hand blade in on Neville's back, but it made contact with the fire sword instead.
"Not yet" Neville said as he swung the sword back up over his head, forcing Harry's sword away.
Harry smirked at his partner and allowed the sword in his left hand to fade away, while the sword in his right lengthened to a three foot long-sword.
Drawing the sword up to his right shoulder Harry smirked as he said "Come get some"
Neville responded by driving the fire sword into Harry's defences, attempting to cleave his opponent in half.
But instead of meeting a sword or Harry's left side, the blade passed through a strangely thick substance, which slowed the movement of the blade so much that by the end of the passing the sword was at a near standstill.
Neville blinked quickly as he watches a black mass roughly Harry's height splash to the floor and fade away.
The former wizard frowned as he looked around, where the hell was Harry?
But his answer was forthcoming when he felt a crackle of energy behind him.
In the instant it took Neville to erect a fire shield he knew he was just as well putting his head between his legs and kissing his ass goodbye.
But he didn't get the chance to do that either as the sphere of magic Harry released smashed into the fire shield and blasted the occupant across the field.
Harry grinned as he called for the simulation to end and crossed the shimmering field, which seemed to changed from a grassy plain to a metal chamber in the blink of an eye.
"That makes ten rounds to four right Inferno?" Harry chuckled as he pulled his friend to his feet
Neville replied by smirking as he said "Go back to playing the lovesick puppy with Hunter, Wraith" Harry responded by blushing madly as he stalked away.
"He has got it bad" Neville muttered as he followed.
Harry sighed as he felt the warm water cascade down his back in the shower, what Neville had said was right, he was attracted to Kate, but whether or not it was platonic or simply physical was a question he didn't have the answer to yet, she seemed to smile at his a lot and despite his metal abilities Harry had never used them to enter the minds of anybody at the institute, aside from the fact that Professor Xavier would have his head, it was a violation of privacy that Harry would never even contemplate.
"Hey Neville" Harry called through the steam filled shower
"Yeah?" Neville called
"I've been thinking about something for a while" Harry replied "It's something the professor brought up during telepathic training"
"What?" Neville asked as they left the shower, wrapping towels around their waists
"While I've been working with the Professor he's been teaching me to understand the mind" Harry said "He told me 'before you enter another mind you must understand your own' something about that's been bothering me for a couple of weeks"
"What?" Neville asked as he dropped his now damp towel and reached for a pair of boxers in his locker
"It's about your parents" Harry said "As far as I know Lestrange tortured them with the Cruciatus"
"That's right" Neville replied as he sat down and pulled on his trainers.
"Well I'm gonna talk to Agatha today" Harry replied as he pulled his longer hair into the short ponytail it formed "She was a Medi-Witch, so she'd know more about how exactly the Cruciatus effects the mind and the body"
"Let's go talk to her then" Neville said "She's headed back to the Salem Magical Academy this afternoon"
Harry nodded as he picked up his jacket and jogged from the changing room, pulling it on as he went.
In the main hall of the mansion Logan was on his way to the kitchen to get a bottle of water when a flash of flame and a pillar of a strange black liquid appeared in front of him.
When the black substance splashed to the floor and faded away and the flames cleared Logan saw Harry and Neville standing in front of him.
"Good spar runts?" Logan grunted
(AN Does anybody here know what happened to Sabretooth after the incident with Apocalypse. The most I've ever seen of X-Men evolution is the thing with Asteroid M)
"Not bad Logan" Neville nodded "Got my ass kicked again though"
"Only way to learn is to get the crap kicked out of ya" Logan grunted
"You seen Agatha?" Harry asked.
"Try the library" Logan grunted as he walked down the hall to the kitchen.
When the teens reached the library they found Agatha sitting talking to Remus.
"Agatha" Harry said
The aging witch looked up and asked "What can I do for you?"
"What do you know about the way the Cruciatus curse effects the brain?" Harry asked
"Everything" Agatha replied as Harry and Neville sat down "The curse works by hyper stimulating the pain receptors of the body, making the body believe that it is under attack. The advantage of this is that resisting the curse is simply a case of mind over matter, by realising that the pain is only physical you can defeat it"
"That's not what I meant" Harry said "I'm taking about what happens after long term exposure"
"Ah" Agatha nodded "I see…as I said the curse hyper stimulates the pain receptors, eventually if the exposure goes on too long the brain cells are fried and essentially shuts down and the consciousness is forced down into the depths of the mind"
Harry nodded as he ran over the information in his mind, this was promising.
"What's this about Harry?" Remus asked
Harry grinned as he said "I think I may have a way to help Neville's parents"
Authors Notes: Done.
Next time the team takes a little trip to St Mugno's and makes a discovery.