Chapter Eight: The Battle of the OWLs
The infernal whip lashed down repeatedly either being deflected or dodged. The flames thrashed the ground, leaving hellish scorch marks. The flame whip quickly became a shield as a barrage of red and orange spells forced him back in temporary retreat—the shield overpowered each spell magnificently. A lightning fast dodge and the shield became a barrage of red and orange spells similar to his advisory. Though the enemy seemed impervious to the futile attempts, the old man's shield absorbed each spell—growing darker with each additional spell taken. Ion's barrage of spells stopped abruptly, perplexed, he summoned a whip of wild flames, unlike the previous whip. This whip was a wild scatter of red-orange flames, as compared to the structured whip previously. This whip bent around the shield and appeared to consume the shield momentarily. But, the shield stood strong covering Dumbledore in a blood red sphere; Ion then began prowling around the man waiting, searching for a weak spot. Suddenly, the man behind the red shield seemed to be covered by a light gold shield and the red shield exploded. In a cascade of black and red flames Ion's body was entirely engulfed. After the dust and debris cleared, both men stood covered in a thin gold magical shield.
"Wow, what was that? I thought I had you." Ion was covered in dirt and debris.
"That was magic that most wizards never see in their lifetime. The red shield was simply your energy. You see it protects me while absorbing all of the spells you send toward me. Each spell you send to me makes the shield stronger, but if I choose to do so I can rapidly release the energy held in the shield out, resulting in that beautiful explosion. Usually such a spell wouldn't absorb so much, but your spells are so strong and plentiful, you gave me a perfect weapon. The golden shield I covered us both with, was actually part of the red shield. The user of that shield has the power to redirect the energy where he sees fit. I sent some energy to shield us both, while sending much of the energy to create this wonderful crater here." Dumbledore stood in a large hole in the ground where his shield once was.
"Where do I learn such a spell?" Ion asked quickly, seeing the potential in such a powerful spell.
"You will learn it when you are ready. I learned this spell over my years of traveling, reading, researching, and I cannot teach you. You see, it wouldn't be fair to you. It is one thing to be taught a spell, but it is another to learn a spell on one's own accord, thus appreciating the finer points." The man smiled at the slightly hurt boy.
"I understand. I need to learn myself or else I won't appreciate and respect the work and power behind it, but I still think that is a great spell that would suit me well." The boy smiled at the old man and proceeded to use the wand to clean himself off.
"On a side note, Ion. I only used such a spell on you because it was the only way to beat you. Honestly, my skills in basic fifth year magic is not as skilled as yours. Not to say that is the only reason because you gave me a workout, my boy. There were a couple of close calls, where I almost blocked one of your various spells with my face. Very impressive; you will be much stronger once you learn more specialized magic." The man told the boy. But, in the man's head he had a slightly different tone. 'The boy is so strong. It won't be long until it will become a real problem to fight him, similar to his father he possesses the natural talent for magic, but I hope he doesn't have the natural alignment for destruction. Once he learns more powerful magic, his dueling will become a force not to be reckoned with—a potential replacement for his father, a new worse wave of fury. But, I am sure he is different, he doesn't seem to lean to destruction for comfort. I am confident he will not be like Him.'
"Well it's time for the test. I am sure I will do well, Hermione instructed me."
"Well, Ion I wish you luck. You do not need it, I assure you. But, when it comes to the Defence Against the Dark Arts, if they make you duel, don't hurt anyone—not everyone is as proficient at dueling as I am." The man winked at the boy, removed a small yellow piece of candy and offered it to Ion.
"No, thank you, Professor."
"It's the Portkey. So I think this piece of candy might be useful to you. "Ion took the piece of candy and was sent to a room filled with a number of witches and wizards never seen before. Outside the room, Dumbledore appeared, waiting to have a firsthand view of the testing procedure. 'With that last bit of training before the tests, I hope he became comfortable with his magic more.'
Ion planned on using the wand Dumbledore gave him because he was not supposed to have it just yet, and he had learned all of his magic with that wand; it wouldn't be smart to change what worked on such an important occasion. Standing in the room he felt ready, and he welcomed all challengers. The oldest man of the line of people stepped forward with a long piece of parchment.
The dreadfully old man walked forward with the parchment in hand. He began reading from the parchment as the anticipation for his voice to cut the air, built in Ion. The old man greeted Ion with a soft nasally voice; the voice was gentle and non-threatening. "We will be testing you today in various subjects, as you are well aware of. The tests today will be modified from the standard tests given to normal students. They are shorter, but as a result we made them more difficult. Do not worry; it will measure your abilities just as well as the standard test. Now, we have prepared your tests and you will be finished by the end of the day. Please sign this paper agreeing to the terms stated here." The man moved forward and handed ion the paper and quill, which did not require ink.
The man stepped back into the line and another less ancient man stepped forward. "I will be administering the Potions portions of the exam. Please sit down and take this written portion, you have twenty minutes." The man stepped showed Ion to a seat that stood directly across a line of other seats where they would be sitting. He placed the quill on the table along with a rolled piece of parchment. Ion quickly sat down and began taking the test. The written portion seemed rather easy for Ion; he believed he knew everything entirely.
"Please follow me into the other room where we shall begin the practical assessment." They both walked into a room not too far from the seat. They entered a room filled with ingredients and potion making equipments. "Your task is simple really, but very challenging. You must create three potions. Two must be entirely different poisons, but you must make an antidote that will cure either. You have forty five minutes. Any questions?" Ion ignored the man's question and scrambled for ingredients.
Grabbing handfuls of ingredients Ion managed to gather enough ingredients for a number of potions, but he needed to be precise in creating the specific potions. He began separating ingredients on the table to make two different poisons. He decided to keep the poisons as simple as possible, but fatal poisons seldom are easy to make. He tried to quickly think how one would go about completing this task he still had forty minutes. 'I can't make two distinct poisons because they don't really have similar antidotes. But I can make poisons with the same kill method and an antidote that counters that. Okay, I have the ingredients for a blood coagulant, and I can make the second poisons kill with blood coagulation but with a different main ingredient. The antidote would be a simple blood thinner of the slightly less magnitude of the poison. It is funny, the antidote could also kill, but I don't see any other way right now.' Ion thought fast coming up with an exact plan and making the base for each potion—each somewhat different. Then he built on top of the potions slowly making each highly potent for its purpose. Building all three at the same time bought him a large amount of time and finished with twenty minutes to spare.
The examiner walked to Ion and asked, "Are you finished? Are these flasks your results?"
"Uh, yes. I finished early."
"Good the sooner you finish each test, the sooner we all get to go home." The man took the marked flasks and they walked out of the room, where the next tester awaited.
"Hello, Ion. It is time to begin your Defence Against the Dark Arts exam. Take the written portion now and alert me when you are finished; you have twenty minutes." Ion quickly finished the test; it simply tested his knowledge of counter spells and spell functions. "Please follow me into this room. Your practical examination will begin." They walked into another room where targets, dummies, and other strange objects stood. The room was large and well lit. "Now, you have multiple tasks from me today. First, you must demonstrate your ability to hit targets, and then you will be fighting a few dark creatures. Now please hit all of the dummies and targets in the room, you will be judged on your speed, accuracy, and the spell you use. Feel free to use any advanced spells you know."
Ion began unleashing barrages of flames from his wand. He released powerful fireballs at various targets, and then suddenly started shooting Reducter Curses at various objects. Some targets were so small they were very difficult to hit, but using his dragon ring, he was able to hit them perfectly. Then he started hitting the dummies with his flame whip. He sliced dummies in half, crushed them completely with the more wild whip, and often changing spells for a variety of destruction. He destroyed the mass amount of targets in just a couple of minutes.
"Very impressive. Those tiny targets all the way in the back of the room weren't meant to be hit in one try. They were meant to take multiple attempts, good show. But, now it is time for you to combat some dark creatures. You have fifteen minutes to defeat all of them." The man walked up a set of stairs that disappeared behind him, where he was now protected from the battlefield. Suddenly with a glow about 10 feet in front of him a large blast-ended skrewt appear before him. The large pincers of the creature began to slowly open as the creature lowered its front to the ground. Ion instantly knew what was coming. The grotesque monster was propelled forward by the large explosions from its posterior region, thus propelling the large pincers directly in the region of Ion's face. Though, he was too fast and moved long out of the way, and he began launching spells at the creature. The armor of the creature seemed to resists magic very strongly, but he continued launching spells. Then he summoned his trusted whip once more, in attempts to destroy the beast. First, he lashed at the creature's leg. The initial strike seemed to just anger the beast, but Ion then used the whip to completely entangle the skrewt's legs. Then with a little focus, he increased the temperature in the whip's flames to scorching magnitudes. The whip seemed to become incredibly bright—almost as bright as the sun. Ion felt the heat brush against his face violently, as he turned away from the blinding light. He released the spell as soon as he heard a large thud hit the floor. The large creature struggled to stand upright, but all of its right legs were completely singed off. Ion quickly gathered his wits, in order to take the creature out of its misery. Then he moved closer to where the armor had been weakened by his incredible spell and launched a barrage of stunning spells, until the large creature stopped moving completely. Then lowering himself dangerously close to the monster he touched his wand where the creature's head should have been. He focused for a moment and yelled, "Reducto!" The monster then had a hole blasted completely through its thick shell; the creature then disappeared.
"Very nicely done, but there are more. You have roughly twelve minutes left." Again with a glow something began to appear in the middle of the room. A large dog-like beast appeared, and without any warning at all, it began to attack ferociously. The creature seemed to be a combination of a wolf and a warthog; it had large dangerous looking tusks protruding out of its nose, while the wolf-like mouth contained a plethora of too sharp teeth.
'What the hell is that thing!?' He thought to himself as he tried to outsmart it and buy himself some time. Understanding it did not have any tough armor, he knew it could be killed easily, but it just didn't cease in its attack for a moment to allow him to think of a plan. Dodging a flying leap from the beast, Ion pointed his wand at the floor and coated it with ice. Then as the wolf-like creature slid uncontrollably toward the wall, he summoned deadly and ragged looking spikes for the creature to impale itself on. Seeing the dangers ahead of it, the wolf-creature began flailing like mad to stop its slide. Ion saw this and quickly raised his wand. He summoned large shards of ice in front of him that grew very quickly; then he sent them speeding toward the beast with the message of death. The shards made contact and quickly stopped the monster's struggling on the ice, and a second later the creature made contact with the large metal spikes he had initially summoned.
Predicting correctly, Ion prepared for another creature to appear in the room. With the glow, a large spider appeared—a spider taller than Ion. The spider did not attack suddenly like the other creatures it simply backed away slowly, seemingly plotting against the boy. Ion also stared at the large arachnid, judging the strength of it. The spider couldn't be avoided like the other two, it was too wide and large, it wasn't slow because of its many legs, and the web could cause untold problems for him. 'I guess, I can take care of it the same way I did the skrewt.' Ion walked forward and began the attack. The spider then moved back even farther, a long thirty five feet separated them, so Ion began to run at the spider with his wand at the ready. But then, without any prediction of what was about to happen, Ion fell straight forward. He tried to get up but something was keeping him down; the spider had made an entire labyrinth of invisible webbing on the floor so he could fall into them. 'DAMN!' He tried to move his wand arm but it was set in completely. 'Shit! Shit!' He looked for where the spider was but he couldn't see; it seemed to have disappeared. Then he heard it behind him. Without hesitation, Ion braced himself and pointed his wand at the floor. He unleashed a burst of mild flames that engulfed the floor. He was a safe distance from the flame, but when the webs snapped from heat he would be plunged into the fires. Quickly the webs snapped and he shielded himself with lightning speed and landed in the flames. With the full body shield on, he engulfed his body in more flames thus repelling the spider. He relinquished both the shield and the flames once the spider had gone. He still had ten minutes, but he did not want this battle to last any longer for fear of making another mistake. The spider then darted forward with incredible speed—it had the sole intention of making Ion its meal. But, in a final great act, Ion covered the spider in a great shield. Ion also then repelled the large spider in its ball with a Reducter Curse. Thinking quickly, Ion made the shield smaller, thus disabling the spider's ability to move. He walked closer to the large glowing ball and opened a small hole in the shield. He inserted his wand and filled the sphere with water. Within a few minutes, the spider had drowned and the test was over.
"Oh my! That was a wonderful show of skill and power. I am very impressed. I am sorry if the danger seemed real, but if you were about to be harmed, the creature would have stopped right before any damage had been inflicted. I am usually not allowed to do this, but you will definitely be getting a wonderful score on this section, absolutely spectacular." They returned to the great room, where the next examiner continued the cycle. Ion took all of his O.W.Ls with time to spare on all.
"Hello, Ion! Wonderful performance!" Dumbledore said while entering the room after his final test. "Are you ready to go?"
"Yes! But, you saw my testing?"
"Let's go." They walked out of the room and prepared to Portkey back to the island. "Yes, I was watching to make sure the testing was fair and done properly. Some of the tests did seem very difficult, the portion for the Defence Against the Dark Arts, specifically. But, you seemed to be able to handle it properly so I allowed it to continue. " They both used the Portkey, which took the form of a cup. They ended up outside the mansion. "Go on in and relax, Ion. There is little left of you summer, go enjoy it."
Ion entered and went straight to his bedroom. He jumped on his bed and slept—he didn't even bother to fuss with his clothes or his covers.
The next morning came and Ion woke at six o'clock in the morning to find Hermione at the foot of his bed sleeping. He looked quizzically at her then got up out of bed. Somebody had placed covers on him, which he struggled to get off without her waking. He moved slowly to her and whispered in her ear, "Hermione… wake up." She stirred and then began to wake up.
"Oh you're up!" She jumped up out of bed looking thoroughly embarrassed. "Sorry I fell asleep here. Ha Ha… I was waiting for you to get up. I was very curious to hear about the testing from you. Dumbledore told us a fantastic tale, but it seemed rather one sided." She smiled nervously at the boy.
"Tell me what he told you." She told him exactly what Dumbledore said almost word for word. "Well that's sort of what happened, I am not too sure; it was very hard to remember what was going on when I was in so much danger. So many things were going on. But, overall yea that's what happened. It was pretty invigorating now that I look back on it; I never experienced this much high intensity fighting before. I am starving right now!"
"Come on let's go down stairs and see what we can find to put inside of your stomach. So did you find the test difficult?" She asked as they walked down to the kitchen.
"Not really, it was just what I knew already. Although, the potions portion, threw me for a loop. He wanted two poisons and a single antidote for both."
"How would you do that? Wait don't tell me!" She thought as they walked down to the kitchens. After a few minutes of searching for the elusive kitchen she finally thought of a plan. "Make poisons with similar effects then make an antidote that stops the effect. What did you do?"
"Basically that. Finally some food." He entered the kitchens and started searching for food, which he found. After, stuffing his face for a few minutes he met the craving in his stomach. "So, I guess I have nothing to do until school starts. This previous week I studied, ate, and slept. But, now I have no idea what to do with my life.
"Most
of us have to do our shopping today, although you have already gotten
your items for this term, you can come with us."
"Sure, I
would like to go. I have some business to attend to there." They
went outside for a walk around the castle, where they took a walk
through the forest.
"So where are we going first?" Harry asked the group. "Hey Tonks how many of the guard are here? He whispered to her.
"Many are around watching you all." She seemed to refuse to talk about it anymore. They walked through many stores and eventually got all of their books and robes. When they got all necessary items for the next school year, they decided to explore a little more, and see if they could find any other interesting items to buy.
"We can go visit the twins' store!" Ron suggested. The others agreed fervently and they made their way to the store.
"Harry keep walking." Ion moved next to him and began to whisper. Come with me to Knockturn Alley, we could use your cloak you have told me about."
"What do you need there?" Harry asked in a very low voice.
"I just need to get something quickly. Are you going to come with me?"
"Alright. Let's find someplace clear to get the cloak on us." They found a small nook in the store and put the cloak on. After a few moments of dodging people and getting out of the store, they jogged to Knockturn Alley.
"Harry, wait for me in front of Gringotts in ten minutes." Ion walked into the store he previously found the silver dagger. He then asked the store keeper, "Do you still have the dagger and ring in stock?"
"Oh it is you. No I do not have it anymore." The man seemed very annoyed for some reason.
"Who bought it?" Ion asked rather kindly.
"None of your business. It is not my responsibility to cater to you. You can leave if you are not going to buy anything." Ion turned to leave and a girl entered as he left.
"Don't bother talking to him. He is in a bad mood, he might overcharge you." He told the girl as she passed him.
"Thanks." He looked back and then continued to walk. Ion walked to Gringotts, but a hand suddenly landed on his shoulder. He quickly turned with his wand ready.
"Calm down. You're the one who snuck out of the group. Did you really think I wouldn't notice?" Tonks asked.
"I went to get my wand." He pulled it out and showed her. "See, I'm not using a hand me down anymore." He went back to the rest of the group. "Could we get something to eat, I'm stuffed, and I have a few more coins to spend." They went to eat at the Leaky Cauldron. Ion, Harry, and Ron sat at one table, while the girls sat at another. After a few minutes of Ron showing the two the items he picked up at the joke shop, the girl who passed Ion walked into the pub. There were no tables empty in the entire establishment, which seemed to trouble her. When she saw Ion she smiled and walked over.
"Thanks for the warning. He was in the mood for ripping people off."
"Glad he didn't get you." He smiled at her.
"There are no seats in here do you mind if I sit here?" She looked at the faces at the table.
"Heavens no, we don't mind." Ron had blurted out. "We would be upset if you sat anywhere else." Ron obviously felt she was attractive. The girl seemed quite cheerful and bouncy in her actions. She wore bright light colored muggle clothes. Nothing about her seemed depressing at all. Ron apparently had an instant magnetism to her.
"Thanks." She laughed at the boy zeal. Harry seemed to be bothered. He thought that she would be asking him for an autograph any minute, or she would be trying to ask him some questions about something. After a few moments of talking, Harry seemed to enjoy the upbeat company of the girl; she did not seem to care that Harry Potter sat next to her.
"So what is your name?" Ion asked the girl.
"Eshana. And you all?" Now, Harry felt anxious. If she had not known before, then she will now. They all answered and she greeted them all with their full names. "I assume you all go to Hogwarts. I can tell because you are going school shopping. It seems almost any group of younger people go to Hogwarts."
"What do you do?" Ron asked.
"I got out of school recently, and now I am just doing some personal research. If what I am researching turns out the way I want, the whole world will be better off. But, I can't tell you about it. Not because I don't trust you, but because I don't know you. Plus, I can't have any rivals beating me to my discovery." She winked at them.
"Is it a new spell or something?" Harry asked very curious.
"You don't ask me, and I won't lie." She smiled. Then the girls came over to the table, curious to see the new person at the table. They introduced them to the new arrival. After a few moments, Eshana felt very odd because of the somewhat hostile looks she was getting from the girls. "Well, I think I have to go. It is time I return to my work." She got up and left, followed by the group. They had headed back to the castle, where they would eat lunch and enjoy the rest of the day on the beautiful grounds.
