Chapter Nine – The Fun Begins
Harry grunted as he fell out of the final fireplace and into the safehouse that he would be staying at and he quickly rolled over to avoid being crushed by Tonks only to not have moved in time. He didn't hear the giggles from someone in the room as he tried to untangle himself from Tonks.
Finally he managed to get to his feet and looked up to see Ashlyn standing with another woman and three men. They warily studied each other as Ashlyn tapped them with her wand and muttering a cleaning charm.
"Director." Said the black haired woman to Ashlyn.
"Shuito." Ashlyn nodded in greeting. "Alright, introductions. I am Ashlyn Pierce, Director of Magical Defense. This is Auror Tonks and your charge Harry Potter."
Harry struggled not to look away from the older man of the group, who was staring at him with intense concentration.
"I am Abby Shuito, Assistant Director. This is Assistant Director Tim McGee." Abby continued, pointing to each person. "NCIS Special Agent Tony Dinozzo."
"Special Agent Gibbs." The man still had not taken his eyes off of Harry as he shortly interrupted Abby, who seemed not to have noticed that he had interrupted her.
"Are you sure this kid is seventeen?" The younger man looked down his nose at him.
"Yes Tony." Tim rolled his eyes.
Harry leaned over to Tonks, still not looking away from Gibbs, as if he were trying to pass a pop quiz but he didn't know how to.
"Are you really going to leave me with these people?" Harry covered his mouth so that no one knew what he was talking about.
Tonks slung an arm over him shoulders. "I'll be by often to pick up the pieces and put them back together again."
Finally Harry looked away and glared at Tonks.
"Your accents are so cool!" Abby jumped around a little in an excited way. "I mean usually I'm not into accents but there are just certain people that I think can pull them off pretty well and the British Accent is the - "
"Abby." Gibbs looked over at her, raising and eyebrow.
"Gibbs, I'm the boss lady now!" Abby went on to continue but then shut her mouth at the look he gave her.
Harry watched in interest as he realized that Ashlyn was the only one who was not looking over at Gibbs often as if expecting sudden directions. Gathering his courage he looked over at Tonks.
"What will I be learning? I'm concerned with the fact that this is a magical war and yet my instructors are not." Harry asked to a silent crowd.
Everyone looked to Gibbs.
"You will be learning what I tell you to learn. We start at 0600 tomorrow morning." Gibbs answered as if that's all she wrote. (a/n hahaha I make myself giggle)
Harry's eyes narrowed. "How will I know that what I will be learning from you will be what I need to survive this war?"
Tony scowled and went to say something but was beaten by Abby.
"You do not question the bossman!" Abby said as if he said the most offending thing to him. "He is here on his own time to instruct you and you're being ungrateful."
Stunned Harry looked over at Tonks. "Did you explain what has happened in the past?"
Tonks looked off into the distance, trying to get rid of the guilty look on her face. "I told them that you needed to be trained because you were the only one who could stop You-Know-Who."
Harry stiffened as Ashlyn narrowed her own eyes at Tonks. He turned around and was about to grab the floo powder to leave but Tonks had managed to grab the pot without knocking it over.
"Harry you need to be trained!" Tonks said fiercely. "I am doing what I need to so that you can survive this."
Needless to say, he was very angry as he glared at her. "You need to tell them the truth about who I am and why I am the only person to defeat that monster. You can't just tell half truths and the like to get your way even if it is for a good cause. Dumbledore has done that and look what happened to -"
Tears filled his eyes as he thought of Sirius. Even though he had come to terms with what happened, it still hurt to think of his godfather. Taking a deep breath he turned to their audience.
"Is there a place where I can practice some magic?" Harry asked as calmly as he could.
Tim nodded. "I'll show you the combat room with the dummies that you can program to fight against you."
"Ah, things never change McGeek." Tony smirked.
Gibbs reached over and slapped the back of his head. "Go with McGee and Harry to the combat room."
Tony looked like he was going to object before he changed is mind and followed the two out of the room while Gibbs, Abby and Ashlyn turned to look at Tonks.
Harry followed Tim without looking around, silently fuming as they came closer to the combat room.
"So, Harry," Tony sidled up to him. "You got a girl back home?"
Harry looked up, brought out of his angry mutterings by the thought of Ginny. He didn't realize the he had a small smile on his face as he thought of her.
"Oh, I know that look." Tony said. "You're in love. You're too young to be in love. You need to explore and gain experience."
"Don't listen to him." Tim opened the door to a large room. "He has more than enough experience to last him a lifetime."
"Probie, you can never have too much experience." Tony said. "And I'm pretty sure, I have enough experience to cover me and you! I mean, no girl in their right minds wants to talk about video games and your...books."
Tim finally had enough and took out his wand. In a matter of seconds, Tony was hanging in the air, feet first.
"What the hell?!" He yelled as he struggled to get down.
"I have been dying to do that for such a long time." Tim said with a grin.
Completely ignoring his now very pissed off team member, Tim turned his attention to Harry who had found the cabinet of dummies.
"Do they have different levels of difficulties?" Harry asked as he looked at them, also ignoring the angry yells from behind him.
"Well you can set them to be always better than you, so you always have something to help you continue working on your skills no matter how good you may get. The other way is to manual set it to a level that is to what you want to work with." Tim said as he removed one of the dummies. "These are learning dummies so they will get to know your style and try to make theirs different each time so you get more experience that way."
While Tim was explaining and showing how the dummies worked, with Tony still hanging upside down, the others were listening intently to Tonks.
"Why on earth did you not tell us this?" Ashlyn said angrily. "This is something that we need to know Tonks!"
Tonks turned angrily on her. "He is a seventeen year old boy who has been attacked by that coward five times and barely managed to survive. The past two occurrences ended in the death of his godfather and Albus Dumbledore. Do not yell at me for something that I have to do in order to make sure that he is able to have the life that he deserves and missed out on!"
"By not telling us you are endangering these lives here as well!" Abby said. "We understood that this was in all secrecy and such but the level of danger is a lot higher than we thought. Gibbs and Tony are here without the knowledge of just how much danger is really here."
Tonks stared at them, not willing to back down from her reasonings. "Well now you know. What will you do now?"
"I will not speak for Tony." Gibbs said after a moment. "I will continue to keep to my promise and train him in different areas of combat that I know."
"Tony would follow you anywhere." Abby muttered to herself amusedly, not aware that Gibbs had heard her.
"Will you be willing to talk to him Gibbs?" Ashlyn rubbed her forehead. "Tonks, what about those two friends of his, the ones who have been with him on these....adventures. Will they receive training as well?"
Tonks hesitated. "I have not spoken to them and Harry hasn't approached them either. I believe that he believes that he will be alone in this entire thing."
"They will need to be trained as well." Gibbs said suddenly. "He does not want to put people in danger even if they are willing but it is their war too and they should be ready. Especially if they are so close to him. Not to mention that it may help with training to be among comrades."
Tonks nodded. "I won't be able to talk to them right away. Their panic has to be real so that no suspicion falls on them that they know where Harry went."
Abby stood. "We should go and see how they are faring."
The group followed Abby to the combat room. It was a fairly large room with a padded floor and a cabinet in the corner filled with dummies. They stopped, finding that Tony was still as a board and leaning against the wall next to Tim. They could see that Tony was very angry but unable to move.
Harry had started to use one of the dummies and was already sweating through his clothing as he dodged and dipped under spells that the dummy was sending at him. A few moments later, Harry couldn't miss a spell and was blown off his feet into the near by wall. They watched as he sprung back up to avoid another spell that would have ended the match and walked over to Tim.
"How long has he been fighting the dummy?" Ashlyn asked.
Tim looked at his watch. "About eighteen minutes. Guess what level he's fighting it on." Ashlyn looked at him, waiting. "Thirty five heading towards thirty six."
Abby whistled low as Ashlyn's eyebrows rose. "Most wizards average at fifteen to twenty. Even Aurors have trouble handling thirty."
"How high does this go?" Tonks asked.
"Well, when setting levels like this, only fifty but that's more than enough." Abby answered. "Average wizards only have so much knowledge and stamina, obviously some have more of one of both and some have less but that's the average. Aurors and such train at level twenty-five to thirty but any higher and they usually learn to fight in groups at that point."
"Imagine what he could do with more than a school education." Tonks said as she watched Harry move in awe.
"I guess we'll have to see." Gibbs said as he also watched in fascination.
After a few moments Ashlyn turned to Tim. "Why is Dinozzo under Petrificus Totalas?"
Hey guys! I'm soooo sorry that it took this long for me to update. For some reason I really couldn't get past the first few sentences for a while but I finally did it! I hope to have the next chapter done within the next few days so that you don't have to worry about waiting like you did with this chapter! Thanks so much for all the reviews! Love you guys!
Natabrains – I'm glad you liked that part! Sorry for the wait, I hope this was a good read for you.
Serenity of the Lake – Hope you liked it!
Starbright37 – I love that I made it so anticipating. I hope that you liked this one!
KellyRoxton – lol. We'll see about the ships. I don't think that Abby will be able to stay with them to help with the training. I mean she is after all the Assistant Director in the grand scheme of things and needs to trust others to do the work. But don't worry she'll pop in every once in a while!
Yumi2482 – yea I wish I could read minds but alas sighs I cannot. Thanks so much!
Beth5572 – I hope that you enjoyed this chapter!
Lord of No Fate – I hope that you got what you asked for in the scene McGee ties up Tony!
Loretta537 – I don't know about that lol.
Anne399 – thanks so much! I hope that you liked this chapter.
Horatio'H'Caine – Sorry about the wait! Writers block...whew...glad that's over with!
Firedrakegirl – hope you enjoyed!
