The ninth chapter of the "Bureau agent Potter" is here! Enjoy!

* Review Response:
karthik9, FateBurn, Karou WindStalker, Opinr, Penny is wise, ultima-owner, thunder18, thank you for your reviews, folks!
The 10th Wand, Hedwig is still around. She's just not doing anything beyond being Harry's pet owl, so there was no need to really involve her in the plot yet. That will, however, change with the story advancing into its second arc soon.
Zorobak, depending on what you define as him kicking ass, it might happen even in this chapter.
SonicAnime2010, I've answered your review via PM.
serialkeller, I wouldn't say that you're entirely correct. The unique nature of his magic system indeed makes it a double-edged sword but Harry will ultimately be the one allows the defeat of (or, at least, greatly assists in defeating) NaghtWal.
jgkitarel, actually, not just those two. ;)
Impstar, Harry achieves another solution to his defense problems for now. And a bit later, with some help from a certain red-eyed silver-haired person of mass destruction, his shields will be finally fixed to work properly against Mid-Childan/Belkan magic.
Jose19, Fate will reappear at the end of next chapter,.. Nanoha would probably as well, given how close those two are.
lordamnesia, yes, Harry will participate in (some) events of the Book of Darkness / Tome of the Night Sky arc.

* AN: I'm terribly sorry for the delay, but with a deadline on a major project at my work approaching, I didn't really have either time or inspiration to write much these past few days. Thankfully, I'm more or less done with my part now, so...

Anyhow, with this chapter the introductory arc is finally over. Starting with the next chapter, it's the Book of Darkness / Tome of the Night Sky arc.


Disclaimer: I DO NOT own "Harry Potter" or "Mahou Shojou Lyrical Nanoha". No profit is being made. Same goes for other books, anime & manga I may or may not use for ideas.

"speaking"
"telepathy"
'thinking'
"spells / devices speaking"
written messages


Special thanks to Lupine Horror for his help in polishing the idea and the chapters.


Bureau Agent Potter
chapter IX: Advancements

While he did promise Quint-sensei to practice the moves she had taught him as much as possible, Harry thought he should use the time she was away on her mission to do other things as well. And not all of those were about advancing his magic: he really needed to start looking for an apartment for himself – he couldn't live forever in the Magitek Research Department's hostel, now could he?

And so the young Potter began searching for a place he would call his home in the future. Of course, he couldn't buy a piece of real estate until after he became a soldier for the Bureau and, thus, a legal adult, but that certainly didn't mean he couldn't look for one. And with some help from Kyoko-sensei, he had actually found a few places that had caught his eye.

Out those options, two stood out as the best ones the most. The first of those two was a rather small studio-like flat some ten minutes of bus ride away from the TSAB central offices in the city. The other one was a considerably-bigger – but also noticeably more expensive – four room apartments a bit further away form the offices. And while the second option would eat up almost all of his seed money if he went for it, not to mention it was further from his future place of work, Harry actually liked it more as one day he wanted to have a family, and, well, a family needed a lot of living space...

His problems with real estate aside, the green-eyed teen also continued to work on improving his magic. There were some much needed adjustments to his shooting spells that he needed to implement, yet he had been keeping them on ice because of his martial arts training with Quint-sensei.

He didn't forget about his other, wizarding, magic either, even if it had been a year seen he last used it. A quick experiment, though, showed that with his Linker Core now fully developed casting those spells became hard to the point of impossibility: no matter how much he tried, the most he could produce with lighting charm was a barely-visible glimmer. Other charms he had tried produced similarly-weak results if any at all. But the green-eyed teen couldn't say he was really upset about this: while without doubts it would have been very useful, that magic was definitely not required for his new life on the world of Mid-Childa, and, well...

Finally, since everyone around him kept agreeing on the fact that he was ready for a B-rank test, Harry decided to sign up for one, even if he hadn't passed his C-rank test yet. Hopefully, he will be able to pass this exam on his first try, but he wouldn't be too upset if he didn't.

~/ *** \~

Early in the morning of the last day of August, Harry found himself standing on the levee of the Cranagan's coastal district, waiting for his examiners to arrive. The exam itself will be taking place in one of the few adjustable training grounds located on the artificial islands sitting in the bay. The green-eyed teen actually had no idea what environment he will have to operate in during his test and that was making the things even more interesting.

His exam was also supposed to be somewhat unique in a sense that normally it was done by two man teams. But as he was his own team thanks to his status of a special cadet, he will be tackling it all by himself... At least, it was promised to him that the difficulty of the exam will be adjusted to make it manageable for a single mage. Hopefully, he hadn't been deceived.

Half an hour before his exam was scheduled to begin, a car bearing the emblem of the Fourth Ground Forces Academy arrived. Within it there were two junior officers the young Potter had never seen before, along with major Corrado, which was kind of surprising as she was a member of Aerial Tactical Instructor Corps and even now wore the Air Force's white uniform. But as strange as that was, Harry could care less about that as he was just glad to have her – someone he was already familiar with – as the head of the commission that would judge his performance in the exam. How he knew that she was indeed the head of the commission? Well, what else could she be as the highest-ranked officer around?

"Good morning, major." He greeted with a salute.

"Morning, special cadet Potter." Head instructor Corrado returned the greeting. "I take it you will indeed be taking the exam." Upon his nod, she continued: "Now, I shall explain you your task for the exam while the arena itself is being set up." She summoned a holographic display, showing a map of what could have been a random part of a random city. "You will start at the edge of the arena and proceed to the opposite end via route A. There, you will pick an item and return to the starting point via route B." The said routes appeared on the map. "You will be given thirty minutes to complete the task."

"I see..." Harry said. "And my opposition?" He asked then: after all, without something to slow him down considerably, half an hour was an awful lot time for such a simple task.

"There will be a number of drones scattered around the area." Another four displays popped into existence, showing the images of the said drones. "Drones shown on the displays one through three should be destroyed. Drones like those from the display number four, however, should not be harmed." Major explained. "Any questions?" The young Potter thought about it for a few seconds. And while the task presented by itself seemed to be simple enough, a little bit more information about his opposition wouldn't be harmful.

"I have some." He said. "The drones on displays two and four look identical, sans the decals. Are there indeed no other ways to tell them apart? Also, is there anything I can be told about their abilities?"

"This is the information you will have to acquire on your own." Head instructor Corrado replied. The green-eyed teen nodded, even if he wasn't exactly happy about that answer. Then again... Having all of the details about a mission from the very beginning was impossible as well. He was about to say something else, but those thoughts had been pushed into the background when the flat surface of an artificial island shimmered and a replica of a part of a city appeared, seemingly out of nothing. "Yes, those buildings are quite solid, despite being mere mana constructs." Major Corrado said, noticing his surprise. "But even if those aren't truly real, I would still advise against causing too much collateral damage." Harry nodded, somehow not thinking about asking how much that 'too much' was...


A minute before nine in the morning, the green-eyed teen found himself standing at the entrance into the training grounds where his B-rank exam was taking place. He had the map with the routes he was supposed to follow copied into his device so that he would not make any mistakes and lose points or whatever for wandering away from the course.

Above him, floating right in the air, there was a traffic light much like the one used for the car or motorcycle races. Right now, all 'light' were glaring with red at him, but that would change in a few moments. Indeed, as soon as the clock chimed nine o'clock, the red lights began disappearing one by one. And once the last was gone, three green lights shined, telling him that his exam officially began.

Not planning to waste any time at the start line, Harry headed into the depths of the arena right away. The rubble-covered street created for him, though, wasn't the easiest terrain to run, not to mention that the first drones were already approaching him. These drones looked like an orange-sized gray spheres with a metal spikes protruding from its sides. They were also surrounded by a weak purplish shield. And since these drones were of the kind he was supposed to destroy,..

"Starfall Shooter!" The magical bullets did a short work of the flying annoyances. Some of them didn't even get a chance to fire at him. And those that did get such a chance... Well, their shots were slow and easy to dodge, so, of course, Harry ended this first confrontation without taking a single hit.

Advancing a little further into the arena, the green-eyed teen almost ran into a much bigger drone that unexpectedly floated from behind some barricade-like construction. And he had almost punched it into bits, before noticing that it was actually of the kind that he needed to preserve. So, instead, he used this opportunity to run a quick scan on the drone with his device in hopes that it would help him later on.

That done, he continued advancing into the depth of the fake city, the lack of machines coming at him was actually making him more and more cautious with each step he took. It turned out, he wasn't paranoid for nothing. As soon as he took a turn to the next street, he came across a whole group of drones waiting for him. At the center of the group there was a really big one, surrounded by a number of those he shouldn't destroy. And then there were a few of evil counterparts for the 'civilian' drones... Before Harry could really think about how to handle the situation he ran into, he had to take cover as a damn barrage of projectiles was fired in his direction.

Peeking from behind a corner of a building, the green-eyed teen surveyed the area. And almost immediately he noticed that the drones hadn't moved from their position. That was very good as it meant he could give his 'Starfall Shooter''s bullets the appropriately-curved trajectories and snipe the 'bad' drones without having to leave his cover. Doing just that, he was rewarded by a sounds of the few drones' destruction.

Peeking from behind the corner again, the young Potter saw that the big drone – and the 'civilian' ones, of course – was still around and, apparently, unharmed. That thick armor must have protected the thing from his shooter spell. And what was even worse, he couldn't use his only other ranged offensive spell as it was almost guaranteed to harm the 'civilian' drones as well. This meant that he had to get close and use his fist to destroy the damn thing.

Well, time to put his skills in self-augmentation to test, however incomplete those skills might be. Concentrating hard, Harry willed his mana into his legs, thus making them stronger and able to carry him a little bit faster. Hopefully, that would be enough to dodge the drone's shots as he closed in on it. Especially since the drones, being machines, would be more or less immune to his 'Lumino' spell, a magical equivalent of a flash-bang grenade...

Dashing out of his hiding spot, the green-eyed teen began zigzagging towards the remaining 'evil' drone. And while at first his increased speed and the distance indeed allowed him to dodge all of the shots sent his way, once he got close enough, he was forced to use his physical armor to protect himself instead. But by then he was only about ten or so yards away, though. Quickly covering that distance, Harry punched the drone's cannons with as much strength as he could muster. That, of course, was nowhere near enough to destroy the drone itself, but it still succeeded in rendering it more or less harmless as it couldn't shoot anymore.

Canceling the augmentation of his legs, he instead concentrated on making his arms stronger – his limit for augmentation so far was just two limbs – and using his increased strength there, he proceeded with raining hits upon the now-unarmed mechanical construct. Which proved to be quite durable as only fourth hit landing on the already weak spot finally managed to damage the drone's armor enough to give Harry an access to its insides. The young Potter wasted no time and used that hole in armor to shoot a few bullets of his 'Starfall Shooter' right at the exposed vulnerable hardware, thus finally taking the drone out of commission entirely.

Done with the opposition here, Harry continued following the desolated and rubble-covered street leading deeper into the arena...


Another couple of small fights with weaker types of drones later, he finally arrived to a a small plaza where the object he was supposed to retrieve was located. The said object was a small box the size of a deck of playing cards glowing with purplish light that was lying on a pedestal. Well, at least he needn't search for it... Cautiously approaching the said pedestal, Harry picked the box up and quickly tucked it under the shield strapped to his left hand.

Which was probably a good thing as the next moment he noticed four of the big drones approaching him from different directions. But the young Potter wasn't really scared by those machines as they were still far away, giving him more than enough time to dodge their shots. Plus, as there were no 'civilian' drones around, he could use his more powerful spells in retaliation without fear of being penalized.

"Solar Flare!" The green-eyed teen called, summoning his so far most powerful – and now properly-named – spell. However, it had been noticeably upgraded since the time he had tired and failed to use it against Quint-sensei in a spar. The said upgrade made it so that Harry no longer needed to be standing still and holding the 'bullet' more or less in his hand while charging it up. Now he only needed to be within fifteen yards from it. And he also could have more than one shot being prepared at once now... These quite significant improvements made some loss in the spell's power and increased preparation time something that didn't really matter.

Once the grapefruit-sized balls of mana finished building up, they were sent flying towards the drones, one for each. And with some satisfaction, the young Potter watched them actually damage the mechanical baddies to the point where they resembled twisted piles of metal more than anything else. This was the first time he had used the improved version in an actual combat, and the results looked pretty good to him.

Harry didn't have much time to admire the destruction caused by his spells, though: he was short time as he still needed to deliver the box he had picked to the commission before the half of an hour was over. So, after he made sure that there will be no shots fired at his back by some hidden drone, the young Potter entered the 'route B', which would lead him to the finishing line.


The streets of the 'route B' were just as covered in rubble as any other Harry had seen on this arena, but fighting there was harder as there wasn't as much cover. And the drones that were attacking him, while weak individually, were now coming in waves. Dodging or blocking all of their shots was very hard and the green-eyed teen had actually taken a few hits. Thankfully, none of those did serious enough damage to really hinder him, though, those mostly-superficial wounds did hurt quite a lot.

At long last, though, the young Potter could finally see the finish line. Just a little bit more, and he will be able to complete this exam. Even pass it, if he was fast enough: his fights with the hordes of drones had taken quite a bit of time. And since he obviously wanted to pass, he began running as fast as his heavily-armored barrier jacket would allow him to...

"...And done!" Major Corrado announced as Harry finally crossed the finish line. "That was quite close, special cadet Potter, but you managed to finish the task you've been given in time, with fourteen seconds to spare." The green-eyed teen nodded.

"Well,.. That's what I get from being a ground mage without proper spells to improve my mobility." He commented as he pulled the object he had to retrieve from under his shield and handed it over to one of the Ground Forces' officers that was a part of the commission.

"True." Head instructor Corrado agreed. "And I hope that you are working towards changing that."

"Of course." Harry replied with a nod. While the standard methods of achieving flight hadn't worked for him, he had a theory on how he could achieve a similar effect with what he had. Not to mention that once he had finally mastered the self-augmentation technique Quint-sensei had shown him, he will be able to increase his speed while on the ground at will as well.

"Good." Major Corrado agreed. "Anyhow, seeing as you've managed to accomplish the task you have been given within the allotted time and you did so without accumulating any penalties, I can now congratulate you on passing this exam and officially becoming a B-ranked mage, special cadet Potter."

"Thank you, ma'am!" The green-eyed teen replied, taking to standing at attention.

"Now then..." The lady from the Aerial Tactical Instructor Corps continued. "Why don't you follow lieutenant Mikasa to the car and have your wounds healed?" She asked, nodding towards one of the Ground Forces officers that had been there to observe the exam. "Meanwhile, we will update your personal records." Harry nodded.

"Yes, ma'am." He said, before following lieutenant Mikasa to the improvised field hospital that was organized next to the car the officers had arrived in...

~/ *** \~

"Congratulations on your B-rank, Harry." Kyoko and Mary called the instant the green-eyed teen stepped into her office. Apparently, there already was a party going on in here. Well, 'celebration' would probably be a more appropriate way to describe it as it was more or less just the Device Meisters having some tea with greater than usual amounts of confections.

"Thanks. And you already know?" The young Potter responded, surprised by the fact that they already knew about his success. After all, his exam had ended only a little more than an hour ago.

"Yeah, major Corrado had informed me about it almost as soon as the commission agreed on giving you the rank." Kyoko said. There was a rather long pause, before she continued: "However, we were given another reason for celebration even before that." The blond scientist confided. "Earlier this morning, while you were still taking your exam, a message from the headquarters came. They are requesting Mary-chan to join their Engineering Division as a junior Device Meister."

"Oh..." Harry breathed out. While the position itself didn't sound like it was a very important one, his sempai was still hand-picked by the Bureau's headquarters. It looked like the men there thought highly of her skills and potential. "Congratulations!"

"Thank you, Harry." The green-haired girl replied.

"Are you going to accept that offer?" He asked then. After all, being given such an invitation was supposed to be an honor or something like that.

"Well..." She said. "At first I was worried that it will tear me apart from you and from shishou and from everyone else I know here, and..." Well, Mariel was someone who took being separated from her friends quite hard. She had demonstrated it quite well when Amy-sempai had joined warship "Athra"'s crew. Joining a new collective in a different place would certainly be quite a stress for her. "But shishou had reassured me, and now, I think, I will be accepting their offer."

"I'm sure you will do great as a Device Meister no matter where you go. And we're always just a single call away, right?" the young Potter added some reassurance of his own.

"Thank you." Mary replied. There was a rather long pause, before she continued: "Now why don't we celebrate your success with the exam too, Harry?" She asked, almost rhetorically.

~/ *** \~

It was the end of the first week of September, year 0065, and at the TSAB headquarters a certain counter admiral was getting uneasy. And the reason for the said uneasiness was the lack of news of a particular kind coming from either non-administered world 97 itself, or from nearby worlds.

Three months, three whole months had passed since the detectors he had left around in the Hayate Yagami's house had informed him about the awakening of the Book of Darkness, yet there were absolutely no signs of the knights hunting mages or even powerful beasts down to collect their Linker Cores and fill the Book's pages. And it was this lack of enemy's activity that made Gil Graham uneasy.

No, the lack of attacks made by the Book's guardian knights by itself was good news. The problem of the counter admiral's stemmed from the fact his plan to forever end the cursed Book required it to reach completion first. Without being able to even predict when that would happen, though... And he couldn't just have a warship stationed on his home planet's orbit at all time without explaining it to his superiors why he needed that. Not that they would understand his plan anyway!..

At least, counter admiral Graham thought, everything else was ready for the sealing of the Book of Darkness: its final master was an orphan girl whom no one important will miss, and so no wars would start over her disappearance; the special device, optimized for freezing and sealing opponents, was crafted; and it's intended wielder, Chrono Harlaown, was eager as ever to have his revenge on the Book and had been trained more or less specifically for that task by the Liese twins, his trusted familiars.


Meanwhile, on the non-administered world 138, a certain headmaster of a magical school too was deep in his thoughts, even if he wasn't plotting the final end for a world-destroying Lost Logia. Albus Dumbledore, actually, wasn't plotting anything at all. He was just thinking about a student he had lost to an incident and his own mistakes a little over a year ago.

Yes, thirteen months had already passed since young Harry had come in contact with that strange crystal and something had happened to his magic. And the same thirteen months ago he disappeared from the face of the Earth. No matter what magics the aged warlock had tried, he couldn't find even a single trace of him anywhere. But Dumbledore wasn't giving up on his searches yet as he hoped that one day Harry would return to his friends...

That said, the Hogwarts headmaster couldn't help but still be worried about the Potter heir: Dark Lord Voldemort was active again and was preparing his return to the world of the living – that had to be the reason why one of his followers was currently pretending to be this year's DADA professor – and given how obsessed with the certain prophecy Voldemort was, he would not stop until Harry's cold dead body was crushed under his feet. And that was something that should never happen!

Well, Albus thought, Harry was probably safe for now, wherever he was as not even Fawkes the phoenix could reach him. But could it last? Especially since this year Hogwarts would be hosting the revived Triwizard tournament – the Goblet of Fire was a very powerful and dangerous artifact, capable of binding people in magical and nigh-unbreakable contacts without their consent. All that was needed was the said person's name written by their hand.

Dumbledore really hoped that Voldemort didn't know about that, but considering the disguised Death Eater in the castle, he probably did. And planned to used that power of the Goblet to get his revenge against Harry. Either by summoning him and having him participate in the deadly tournament, or by having him suffer the consequences of breaking the contract he didn't even know he was entered in.

Neither of those two things had any right to happen, though, the Hogwarts's headmaster resolved. Harry had the right to live his own life – even if Albus would rather it was here, at his school – and taking that right from him would be nothing short of criminal. Thus, he had to do everything in his power to stop Voldemort's plans regarding the young Potter, whatever they might be, from succeeding.

~/ *** \~

It was the middle of September when Harry finally managed to get the self-augmentation technique Quint-sensei had showed him to work properly. Well, at least he was able to use it for his entire body at once now, even though he still needed to devote quite a bit of his concentration to keep it working. That, and he could increase his strength only so much this way...

But, whatever, he finally made that technique work properly for him, and now he could start working on his next big project: learning to create a protective layer of mana around his body. It should give him some additional protection from incoming attacks and, hopefully, provide the base for the spell of his own making that would grant him an ability to fly.

At least in theory. According to his calculations, the surface area of his body was insufficient for that spell to provide the lift required for stable flying. But he could just give himself wings of pure magical energy or something like that to solve that little problem – humans had been dreaming about flying like birds since prehistoric times, after all. Of course, doing something like that sounded like a difficult thing to achieve, but the green-eyed teen was sure that he will be able to pull that off one day.

~/ *** \~

Just a few days later, just at the beginning of weekends, Harry was told by Kyoko-sensei that captain Zest's team was back from whatever mission they had been sent onto all the way back in mid-July. In other words, Quint-sensei was back and the lesson she was giving him would resume soon. And the green-eyed teen was eager to see how much he had progressed with his martial arts and magical training since their last meeting. Not to mention, he wanted to know what else the Belkan knight might be willing to teach him.

The said purple-haired beauty contacted him directly via a phone call the next day, scheduling their first-in-a-while meeting to occur on Wednesday next week at the Fourth Ground Forces Academy's training ground number six – the very one they usually used in the past.


The normal greetings aside, the actual meeting began surprisingly awkwardly: neither Harry himself nor his purple-haired sensei could actually come up with something to say for a good few seconds. Finally, Quint decided to take the charge and broke this somewhat-uneasy silence.

"I heard you have passed your B-rank exam while I was out on my mission?" She asked, receiving a nod from the young Potter in response. "Congratulations on that and on getting one... a few, actually, steps closer to becoming an elite mage."

"Thank you." Harry replied. "And I hope your mission, whatever it was, went well." The purple-haired beauty responded with a shrug.

"You can say that." There was a short pause, before she continued: "Now then, why don't we see, what you've achieved while I was away?" In other words, they were going to have a spar, the one in which they were limited to just martial arts and self-augmentation – after all, those were the things she had been teaching him and his progress in mastering them was what she was interested in.

Their spar didn't last very long as despite all of the advancements he had made, Harry was still nowhere as good when it came to unarmed combat as his sensei. Yet, he had lasted almost two minutes against her and that, in his own eyes, was quite an achievement by itself.

"Well..." Quint began. "I can see that you've improved quite a lot since our last meeting. And while I can't really say that you've mastered the self-augmentation technique already, you are pretty close to achieving that. Likewise, your hand-to-hand combat got better too. I'm actually not sure I can really teach you much anymore; all you need is practice, against different opponents, preferably, the ones using different styles." She said.

"Thank you, sensei." Harry replied, secretly being quite proud that he managed to impress his teacher. He was about to say something more then, but was interrupted by a new voice:

"Found you, Quint-chan." Turning around to look at the source of that voice, the young Potter saw a very youthful – she actually looked like she was still in her late teens – and quite pretty woman with long lavender hair and purple eyes. Her clothes, however, were neither a military uniform nor a barrier jacket. Instead, she was wearing a very civilian pale-yellow dress. ...And one more detail about her: she was quite pregnant, about six or so months along.

"Ah... Hi there, Megane-chan." The purple-haired Belkan knight greeted after a moment of pause. "This is warrant officer Megane Alpine. She is the third member of my team and specializes in support magic and summoning. Of course, she can... could kick ass in direct combat as well." She introduced the new-arrived beauty to Harry.

"Good day, warrant officer!" The green-eyed teen greeted then, causing Megane to chuckle.

"Hello there." She greeted back. "And you don't have to greet me like that – I'm off duty and will be like that for a while." The lavender-haired summoner said then, while waving her hand dismissively. Then she communicated something to Quint via telepathy, causing the said knight to blush a little. Whatever response Nakajima-sensei gave her, once again via telepathy, made Megane giggle.

"Alright." The purple-haired beauty interjected sharply. "I've already seen the progress you've made with your martial arts and self-augmentation, Harry." She continued in a gentler voice. "But what about your overall level? She we have another spar, the anything goes one, to see how much you've improved as a whole?" She asked then.

"Okay." The young Potter replied, summoning his barrier jacket back as he switched his device to its active form.


The end result of that spar was still quite predictable: Harry lost. Though, that certainly didn't mean that he hadn't improved since the last time. Today, he actually managed to surprise Quint-sensei by his new method of charging his shooting spells up, thus landing a good solid hit on her. And he had also made her use her rare skill that allowed her to create solid 'roads' out of mana wherever she pleased, for the first time ever... In other words, he had indeed improved a lot over the last three months.

The purple-haired beauty was quick to admit that too, noting that his current B-rank was well-earned. Still, just like Harry himself had said, his lack of proper mobility skills was becoming a significant weakness, just like his problems with proper magical defenses, without overcoming which he will be hard-pressed to advance through the power ranks further.

Megane had also added her two cents to the assessment of the green-eyed teen's magic prowess. According to her, either through nurture or because of his unique magic system inclination, he was better suited for ranged combat. Thus, while being able to fight efficiently in any situation was great, he should concentrate more on his shooting spells and using them to their full potential... And she actually was quite willing to lend him a hand there... It looked like Harry had gained another teacher to show him the ropes of the magical combat...

~/ *** \~

Since Megane, being on the parental leave, had little else to do, she dropped by from time to time and helped with Harry's training. Both by having her personal summon – a humanoid black insectoid called Kuroryuu – act as a sparring partner for the young Potter and by giving him some advices on how he should approach developing his mana control further.

It were actually her instructions that finally allowed the green-eyed teen to properly generate a mana cloak around himself. The said cloak, when tested with a few D-rank and even C-rank shooting spells, proved itself to be a pretty reliable defense, as it significantly weakened the incoming attacks. This made Harry quite happy: he loathed being a glass cannon, but couldn't really change it until now as his 'Lesser Aegis' shield was quite useless at stopping any magic thrown its way.

Anyhow, with his mana cloak finally mastered by the middle of October, Harry began working on giving himself wings and, subsequently, the ability to fly. But, of course, extending his mana away from his body was not easy, even without molding it into some complicated shapes. And the further away from his body the young Potter tried to project his magical energy, the harder controlling it was. Not to mention that since it all was raw mana manipulation, his device couldn't help him any with it... But he wasn't going to give easily, not when he was so close to achieving the coveted ability to fly!


Three weeks. That's how much time it took Harry to finally understand how he should manipulate his mana into more or less stable forms extending away from his body. But he finally succeeded! And now he could give himself 'wings'... Well, those actually looked like prolonged rectangles sticking out of his back – a pair of bigger ones forming the upper, main, wings; and another, smaller, pair creating additional, lower, ones – but it was still some major progress.

Now, all that was left for him to do was actually making his wings generate some lift. And, of course, learning to fly without devoting all of his mind's power to that: after all, what use his flight would be in combat if it prevented him from using any spells to actually fight? The green-eyed teen, though, was sure that he will manage to overcome that problem as well, just like he had it with many other before. Thus, he delved into his training with even greater passion than ever before.


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