-'Dammit, what's happening?'
Dudley was getting angry. He had come to this party to chat up some bird and maybe get a happy night and nothing was happening.
He had tried every line in that book his mate had given and nothing.
Not even laughing at him and that was the scary part.
He had tried chatting up that cute redhead by the DJ earlier.
He'd sidled over to her and given her that line about her being tired because she had been running through his mind all night. He was sure it was going to work but nothing. She had stared at him as he taped her on the shoulder, she had looked him in the eye as he smoothly gave his line and then when he stopped speaking she just turned around like he had never spoken and resumed talking with the blonde standing on the other side.
He had figured it was a one time thing, she just had no sense of humor or something and he'd just gone to the next one.
He saw this pretty bird standing by the drinks table all by herself.
He walked up to her trying to show his muscles. As he got to her he started giving her the I got lost in your eyes. She had turned to him when he tapped her shoulder but just like the other, the moment he stopped talking she just turned back like he had never been there.
What in the blazes was going on?
-'Hey, I don't think we've met.'
He turned around to see a plump brunette extending a hand.
-'Uh? Oh yeah, uh no, I'm Dudley.' He took her hand and shook it.
She was ok looking but with all the other hot girls here he wasn't going to waste his time.
-'I don't think I've seen you at school are you not from around here? I'm Megan by the way.'
The young man was taken aback by that line of question.
-'Uh, no I go to Smeltings, I'm from Surrey.'
-'Smeltings? Never heard of it. Why not Hogwarts?' She took a sip from her drink.
-'Hogwarts?' He stared at her. How could she know the barmy school his cousin went to. 'How do you know about Hogwarts?'
She narrowed her eyes as she starred.
-'I go there, I'm a 6th year.'
-'Uh you're one of those fr..' He petered off as she glared openly. 'You're a W... you know?'
-'Yes, yes I am Dudley,' She injected as mush sarcasm as she could in his name. 'And since you don't go there and you're not a W..., can you tell me why you're wearing a magical belt?'
-'Uh?' he stared down at his belt. 'What d'you mean magical belt?' he gripped the buckle and pulled on it a little. 't'snot magical, it's just a belt I pinched from my cousins room.'
She laughed out loud at this.
-'I know that for you it might be usual to strike out this much but you must have been wondering why this time they didn't just laugh openly at you afterwards, no?'
Some of what she said he couldn't understand but it was sinking in that maybe she was right and this was a magical belt.
-'What you mean that this belt makes it so that girls don't notice me when I try to chat'em up?'
She laughed louder then ever at this.
-'No you blubbering fool, it looks like it's designed so that stupid muggles like you ignore the person wearing it.'
His brow furrowed as he tried to process this.
He came to the logical conclusion that this was a stupid prank from his cousin and he had to pay for this.
Unfortunately his ride ignored him every time he stopped talking so in the end he just took off on foot towards his house.
It took him two hours to get home. None of the taxi's would stop for him no matter how hard he tried to signal them.
He finally got to the front and he would have stormed through and up the stairs if he had the energy left.
He did not notice his parents look up briefly as the door banged shut behind him and look back down to their respective magazines.
He trudged up the stairs to his cousins room and banged on the door until it opened.
-'You did this to me!'
Harry looked at him with a completely blank expression. He was used to his family going bonkers from time to time but usually they had a reason for it. This particular tantrum seemed to be coming out of the blue.
-'What are you on about Dudders?'
Tugging the belt out of his pants he thrust it at his cousin.
-'This you freak, you made me wear this at the party so all the birds would ignore me.'
Looking at the belt he recognized his latest experiment.
It was supposed to be a limited notice me not field keyed to muggles. The twist was that the studs along the belt were tiny magical batteries so that there was no repeat of the table incident. The siphoning runes charged the batteries and the spell pulled on the batteries so there was no risk of surcharge.
Obviously it also worked for muggles, at least for a time as demonstrated by his fool of a cousin.
-'Do you mind if I take a look?' He took the proffered belt.
When Dudley glared at him even harder he touched the activation rune and watched the glazed look pass over his cousin's eyes. When the fool shook his head and stepped out into the corridor wondering where he was Harry smiled and closed the door quietly.
September was well into its third week when the screams of panic rang out.
It had been a thundery afternoon so most of the school population was indoor.
Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny and the twins were sitting in the great hall doing their homework.
-'Someone just got struck by lightning!'
-'Harry just called down lightning on himself!'
The sound had barely finished reverberating to the end of the hall when all 6 of them exploded out of the doors.
The mad dash was led by Ginny. Followed closely by Hermione and the twins. Neville and Ron were bringing the rear.
As they shot through the doors out of the castle another bright light cut the sky.
The thunder almost blew them off their feet.
It had been close enough that all of those that had been caught with both feet on the ground felt the surge circuit their legs.
What stopped Ginny open mouthed was Harry Laughing at the point where the lightning struck.
Hermione ran another couple of feet before she too stopped.
Harry was standing in the middle of a widening circle of burnt grass.
He was wearing what looked like a silver muggle raincoat with the hood up.
In his hands he once again raised the strange bottle he was carrying.
It was a big jug almost 6 inches across at the bottom with a spoon sticking out of the lid and a thin cable running from it to the ground.
Standing on tip toes Harry raised the jar in one hand and screamed something at the dark sky above him.
As if accepting the challenge the clouds responded with another thunderbolt.
The afterimage burned in her retinas Hermione closed her eyes.
-'What the hell?' George had just recovered from the brief shock to see the next bolt hit the boy standing in the rain.
-'My thought exactly.' Fred replied. 'Is he calling lightning to him?'
-'But that's impossible!' Neville answered breathlessly. 'No one can control thunder and lightning, not even the most powerful mages. Even Merlin couldn't do that.'
As to prove him wrong another flash of light temporarily blinded them as the tingle ran up their legs.
When they opened their eyes again The-Boy-Who-Visibly-Could-Survive-Anything was running towards them with a smile across his face.
-'Hey guys. What are you doing out here?'
The smile and the casual attitude seemed to temporarily shut down the speech capability of most of them.
-'Bloody Hell Harry! What were you doing out here?'
Harry looked at his friend with mild surprise.
He pulled out the bottle from the bag he had put it in.
Everyone had to shield their eyes from the flare of light coming out of the now open bag.
-'I was catching lightning of course.'
Putting the jar back in its thick bag he looked back at his openly gaping friends.
-'Harry James Potter! Explain to me right now what went through your head when you decided to walk out in a thunderstorm and "Catch lightning".' Ginny channeled her mother for a moment as she glared at the discomfit boy.
-'Well I got this book for Christmas last year, and it talks about a bunch of mechanical things,' He nodded at Hermione. 'But some of the electrical stuff need more juice then I can produce with a spell.' He tapped the jar in its bag. 'So I figured it would be easier to catch some free flowing electricity and store it for when I need it.'
-'But how did you survive it?' Neville was staring at the rain jacket and weird looking boots on the dark haired boys feet.
-'Oh that's easy,' He opened the flap of his coat. 'I used a lightning spell and I enchanted each strand with it so when the jacket was woven no matter what happens lightning can't get through it.' He lifted a foot so they could see the sole. 'My boots have pretty much the same thing only more so, so that nothing can come up them at all.'
The twins gently rubbed the coat material between their fingers.
-'This is …'
-'...Amazing Harry.'
-'And the jar young man?' Ginny was trying to calm down from the mild heart attacks she had just received.
-'Oh that was the easiest. Unbreakable charm on the bottle itself and one way coating on the spoon so that lightning goes in but can't come out.' He pulled out a small test tube full of a white gas. 'This is vaporized magnesium oxide. It was the best I could find to hold the charge.'
Hermione and the twins nodded in understanding at this while the others only gaped at the unfamiliar names.
-'Now all I need to do is invent something that uses electricity and then invent a way of extracting the lightning a bit at a time rather then all 5 strikes at once.
-'You know the irony?'
Harry asked Hermione as he watched the owl swoop with his message to Sirius.
-'No Harry what was it?'
-'I was working on a way to do exactly that.' He pulled out a small beetle out of his robe pocket.
-'What is that?' Hermione took the little blue insect in her hand.
It was surprisingly light with a metallic sheen to its tiny shell.
Without answering Harry took out his wand and a piece of paper.
Catching her eye he extended his hand with the paper in it and tapped the beetle with his wand.
The beetle without making a sound rose from her hand.
It floated gently to Harry's hand and grasped the piece of paper between tiny feet and gained altitude.
With a flick of his wand the boy sent it hovering to the far end of the owlery where with another flick he had it drop the piece of paper into a small waste basket.
-'I didn't want to use it because I agreed with you, the tournament is WAY too dangerous for someone our age.'
He recalled the beetle and put it back in his pocket.
-'Oh well at least you can give it to someone for Christmas.' Hermione smiled.
-'I got it, I got it!'
The exclamation surprised Harry and Hermione as they relaxed by the lake.
Turning around they saw run running towards them with his hand in the air.
Since they had reconciled after the first task Harry had been trying to be more indulgent of his friends excesses but running to them like this was weird even for him.
-'What have you got Ron?' Hermione questioned as he got within non shouting earshot.
-'This!' The red haired boy pulled a ring of his finger.
It was a ring made of some copper like substance with 4 amber stones all around the rim. It was attached to a bronze bracelet by a metallic chain. The bracelet had thin glass tubes running around it that were full of a white gas.
-'Is that lightning?' Harry pointed to the bracelet.
-'What? Uh yeah. I took some of the lightning you gave me to power it.' Ron pointed to the ring. 'It takes a lot of power to turn on and almost none to maintain.' he grinned as he proffered the contraption towards his friends.
-'And what does it actually do Ron?' Hermione handled the item carefully.
-'It's a wand holder!' Ron grinned as he said this.
Both of them stared at the complicated piece of jewelry before turning back to their friend.
-'How does it work?'
Taking it back Ron started explaining.
-'It's easy! First you take your wand out,' He manipulated the ring for a second and it grew to about twice it's size. He tapped it gently and his wand came out. 'And you push it into the ring handle first like this.' He demonstrated this slowly. 'Then you put the ring on your finger and the bracelet on your wrist.'
As he did this Harry stared at the diminutive ring. The wand had disappeared in it like a conjurer's trick.
Ron put the ring on and Hermione gasped as his finger disappeared too.
-'Uh mate, you just lost your finger.' Harry was trying to stay calm as he stared at the object.
-'Uh?' He looked up at his friend as he finished attaching the bracelet. 'Oh that no worries.' He tapped the bracelet once and a new finger started growing out of the ring as if it was slowly being put on. 'See all good now.'
Hermione tried to calm the fear that was poking out at seeing her friend's finger do it's disappearing act.
-'And what about your wand?'
Ron grinned like a maniac.
-'That's the clever bit!' With his thumb he touched the underside of the ring.
With a slight metallic tic his finger retracted back into the ring and the tip of his wand extended almost 10 inches from his knuckle.
-'It's not practical for swish and flick stuff but for point and shoot it is amazing. Plus the bonus is you can't be disarmed.' He beamed proudly at Harry and Hermione's astonished faces.
Hermione was opening the door to the common room when the heavy sound of splintering timber almost knocked her back.
She stared with open mouth as a table sailed in front of her and crashed against the other side of the room.
Harry and Ron were fighting.
That in itself was not amazingly surprising after the events of the goblet but this was a little more then usual.
She watched fascinated as Ron casually swung what must be a full sized claymore at his best friend.
The sparks that flew off the air a few inches from Harry's upraised arms surprised her.
Not half as much as the upwards flight.
The raven haired boy was thrown upwards like a rag doll.
She was about to open her mouth when she saw him twist in the air and push against the ceiling to slow his ascent.
Putting his hands together he conjured a beam of light that flashed instantly towards Ron.
A bat of the sword deflected the beam of light towards the fireplace and Hermione had to shield herself from stone debris ricocheting all over the place.
Both boys kicked off and slammed with a resounding shock wave that pushed what little sticks of furniture were left towards the walls.
Purple and green and red sparks showered the floor as they were bounced away from each other.
With a flourish of his hand Ron vanished the sword and conjured what looked like a small cannon above his left shoulder.
Harry grinned wider and with a gesture 3 small dragons appeared in front of him.
The first cannon blast ripped through the middle dragon and went on to drill a significant hole where Harry had been.
The young boy was no longer there.
He had immediately pushed off from his vertical perch and bounced from the ceiling to the ground and back up to where his friend was taking aim on another one of the fast approaching creatures.
Standing on the wall like it was another floor he grabbed Ron's leg and started spinning him around faster and faster.
With a blur of movement he twisted his spin towards the ceiling and let go.
Ron left a trail of sparks falling to the ground as he dug a trench half the length of the room before impacting with the wall on the other side.
Still upside down he fell towards the ground.
Hermione actually screamed when she heard the loud crack as he impacted bonelessly with the stone floor.
She was surprised to see her friend push himself up and look towards her.
-'Oh hi Hermione.' He stayed kneeling as he smiled in her direction.
-'Hey Mione, you finished your homework?' Harry had jumped the 90 some odd feet separating the walls and was helping Ron to his feet.
She could feel the horror bubbling up as she stared at the utter destruction around them.
The room was behind trashed.
Every single piece of wood that had been there was now in splinters along the walls.
The walls themselves had huge gaping holes where whatever fireworks they had thrown at each other had taken their toll.
Most of the fireplaces were in rubbles, blocked up by wood debris and fallen masonry.
She was too shocked to even acknowledge that the fight itself could not possibly have been accomplished by boys as young as they were. She doubted Voldemort or Dumbledore could have done this in their prime.
-'Hermione?'
-'Mione, you ok?'
They were walking slowly towards her as she gaped open mouthed at the remnants of their sparing match.
-'OH MY GODS! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?' She bellowed the fury that was boiling over into her lungs. 'YOU DESTROYED THE COMMON ROOM!' She was glad to hear that her voice was not trembling despite the hysterics she was having.
-'Wait Hermione, you don't have all the facts.' Ron held his hands up as he backed slowly away.
-'What. Possible. Facts. Could. Explain. THIS. Ronald Bilious Weasley!'
-'He's right Hermione, this is just my latest invention, the room is fine.'
She let her bag drop to the floor as she looked into Harry's eyes.
-'First I need to sit down, next I need an explanation!'
With a gesture Harry summoned the box to him. He manipulated the heavy dial on the top for a minute before putting it down.
The room seemed to shrink around them. No this was not right. The room stayed the same size but the damage and destruction seemed to take on a two dimensional quality before shrinking.
She gasped when she saw people appearing where the furniture used to be.
She was even more shocked when the furniture itself appeared completely unharmed where the students were.
When the damaged room finally shrunk back into the box she stared at it with undisguised awe.
-'Come on Hermione I'll show you how it works.' harry tugged her towards an empty table.
As they sat down he put the box in front of her and started dismantling it.
The box seemed to be made of an aluminum like substance and was covered in runes.
When he opened it she saw the amber stones lining the inside.
Then the tiny sphere in the middle caught her eye.
It was another lightning jar she was sure of it. It swirled with energy and gave off a faint glow.
-'Is this the power source?'
-'Yes, I use lightning for almost all of it so we have to change the sphere every other time we use it.'
-'What the sphere does,' Ron cut in. 'Is to create a pocket dimension exactly the size of the room and three feet more in every direction.'
-'And then it makes a sort of soft matter copy of everything in the room that's not currently alive.'
-'Since it's an alternate dimension the rules are slightly different, rules like gravity.'
-'Yup, that and magic is much more powerful since it's mostly a mind construct.' Harry pointed to the three strands of hair in a tiny vial at the bottom. 'It's designed so that only the people keyed to it can go in and out and since you weren't there when we built it but I figured I'd include you anyway.'
She smiled at him for the thought but the sheer complexity of what they had built overwhelmed her.
She had given that book to Harry last year mostly to give him a little more mundane ideas. What she had not expected was lightning in a jar or cross dimensional portals.
-'So how much magic does it actually drain?'
It was Ron that answered excitedly.
-'Almost none, the battle that you saw took us about as much energy as a practical charms class.'
She smiled at her friends renewed enthusiasm.
-'Can I try?'
Hermione was sitting on the pontoon when Ron walked up to her.
-'What are you doing?'
She turned and smiled.
-'I'm waiting for Harry?'
-'Why would you wait for him here? You'd think after last week the lake would be the last place he'd want to be.'
-'Ronald, have you ever heard the saying that every general is ready to fight the last battle and do it right this time?'
-'Uh, no.' The red head boy looked puzzled at this question.
-'Well it's a reasonably famous saying. The reason I ask is because Harry has been in that kind of mood since he failed to prepare for the task last week.'
Still not getting the point the boy sat down beside her.
-'So why is he coming here? To learn to swim?'
-'No, something else.'
As she said this a dark form seemed to blur a few feet in front of them before a blast of water exploded upwards.
Ron barely had time to put his arms up as he was drenched.
He caught a glimpse of a dark green form passing overhead and landing behind them with a thud.
Scrabbling to his feet he turned to see what had just done this.
The monster was dark green, it's skin a thick leather. As it stared at them the blood red gills on the grotesque face opened and closed slowly. It had two great black voids the size of Ron's palm where it's eyes should be. The elongated arms were connected to its body by green translucent webbings and as The boy watched it started reaching towards them with its clawed appendages.
-'So, how did it go?' Hermione stood beside him unsurprised and dry.
Ron gaped at her as she addressed the creature standing in front of them.
It was the flash of light that brought his attention back to it.
He could see it's face coming off and as it did it's flesh flashed brightly before turning into a more normal looking pink. The transformation progressed swiftly from head to toe and by the time the face had come off completely a wet Harry in his swimming trunks was smiling at Hermione.
-'It went AMAZING.' He handed her the mask he had been wearing and took the proffered towel. 'It's even better then what I thought.' He started drying himself off. 'The construct works exactly to specs and with the tweaks you suggested it consumes very little magic to do it.' he turned to his soaked friend. 'Hey Ron, so, what did you think?'
-'What the hell just happened?' Ron stared open mouthed at his friend.
-'It was my idea Ron,' Hermione piped up. 'I thought that he could have something that did what gillyweed did without the obvious restrictions.' She showed him the mask in her hands.
It was a piece of leather overlaid under a thick metal plate. It was inscribed with quite a few runes in Mayan and Ron was trying decipher them when Harry finished putting his robes back on.
-'Basically it creates a second skin over the wearers,' He pointed to a tight cluster of runes on the top of the mask. 'And then it adds the gills,' He pointed to the set around the mouth of the mask. 'And the fins was a last minute thing by Hermione.'
-'How long does it last?' Ron was tracing the detailed carvings on the inside of the artifact.
-'I was under for about 2 hours and I don't even feel tired.'
Hermione piped up.
-'If my math is right, and it always is, 4 hours.'
-'Let me get my swimsuit and then can I have a go?'
Hermione handed him the mask with a smile.
Hermione had walked to the other side of the castle because she had seen the trees shake from the window.
Because this was on the opposite side from the lake almost no one ever came out here.
This was a good thing because if they had they would have seen this.
This was Harry using a tree as a baseball bat.
Not some sapling but a tree roughly as thick around his upper arm and almost 20 ft long.
This would have been normally impossible for him to put his hands around it but he seemed to have carved it out at this end to taper so he could grip it.
She watched from the top of the hill as he took a few experimental swings then squared off.
She actually gasped when she saw the boulder lift in the air.
It was at least 200ft from Harry and was twice as tall as her from the looks of it.
From this distance she could see a small pair of feet protruding below the stone.
When movement came it was slow enough to feel a little surreal.
The stone did not describe an arc but flew straight at her dark haired friend.
She noted absentmindedly that it had been Ron below the rock.
He stood in a two handed throw pose as he watched the trajectory of the boulder.
Her jaw dropped as the boulder flew a little to the right of Harry.
When she saw the swing begin she put her hands to her ears in preparation for the thunderclap that was sure to come.
The tree split into shards as it hit and the splinters seemed to fly every which way.
The boulder stopped in it's track and it seemed to, just as slowly, fly back along the way it came.
The terrifying boom failed to materialize as the stone flew along a graceful arc.
If her jaw had not already been on the floor it would have been at the sight that followed.
The rock's arc took it almost three feet above Ron. Rather then let it fly he casually jumped up and seemed to grab the bottom.
With a twist of his arm he changed its trajectory to impact with the ground only a few feet behind him.
Both her friends looked at each other and started talking.
She could see their mouths moving but no sounds came to her ears.
Silencing charms.
That would explain it.
Very carefully she picked her way to the bottom of the hill.
She tried to make herself as visible as possible so that she wouldn't catch a stray boulder being casually thrown by her friends.
Her steps actually faltered when she realized the enormity of the thought she just had.
She was 50 ft from them when the sound of their conversation reached her ears.
-'So what we need to do next is see if maybe an imperturbable charm on the tree helps, Hey Hermione.'
-'Hey guys, can I ask what the two of you are up to?' She indicated the now repaired tree trunk that Harry had swung over his shoulder.
-'It's my new invention Hermione.' Ron casually tossed the boulder that was twice his size as he made his way to her. 'Those are gloves of giant strength.'
She could see now that both her friends were wearing gloves that were at least 3 sizes too big for them.
Each gloves had a huge green stone on the back and thick metal plates along each finger.
As she watched Ron's gloved flared with each toss of the stone in his hand.
Harry set the tree in front of him in a good position to serve as a bench.
Casually he sat down and started taking off the gloves.
-'It was actually super difficult to make.' He pointed to the plates. 'Those had to be aluminum to survive the power going through them.'
-'How much power are we talking about here?' Hermione looked curiously at the boulder as it arced away from them.
-'Weeeelll...' Ron was looking away as he started answering. 'Here's the trick, Harry and I started noticing that our old stuff was lasting a lot longer.'
-'Not just a few hours longer, Days.' Harry chimed in.
-'So we figured there might be something going on with wearing enchanted items all the time.'
-'So Ron thought that a good way to test would be to use the equations in "The way things work" and calculate how much magical energy we could dish out.' He pulled out a piece of parchment form his robe.
-'Harry did the actual math but the idea was that we would make something that relied entirely on magic and see how much physical power it could dish out in muggle terms.'
-'So the gloves do what? Make magical energy into physical strength?' Hermione was going through the few equations on the parchment.
-'No actually, I took your swimsuit idea and made a magic weave out of it. It's invisible to the naked eye but what it does is lay across the skin and try to move away from their skin.'
Hermione looked up with brows furrowed.
-'What he's trying to say is that it works by negative feedback with your entire body as a sensor.' Harry tried to explain.
Looking at him she tilted her head trying to understand.
-'If I lift my finger I push on the inside of the field, so the field tries to stay a very specific distance from my skin,' He pushed his finger into the tree to illustrate his point. 'Because it cannot push back against my skin it pushes away from what's above my skin.'
-'I think get the principle.' She looked down at the parchment. 'So how much energy?'
-'The total is at the bottom.' Harry mumbled.
-'All I see here is 1.21GW is that it?' She pointed to the total.
-'Yup 1.21 gigawatts, but that's just Harry, we hadn't finished measuring mine.'