Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter, nor the Mangekyo Sharingan
Lateness: I didn't update for two days because I had an English paper to (sort of) write. It was based off of Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, and is, technically fanfiction. We had to recreate one of Kilgore Trout (a fictional author in the book)'s work. I chose Jesus and the Time Machine, which is about a man who goes back in time to see Jesus. There's some terrible, terrible irony in it. I might post it when I'm finished.
I'm so sure I just failed my math test on Matrices and Kramer's Rule. -tight life-
Mangekyo
It was the beginning of August before Harry decided that he would have to take a trip to Diagon Alley to purchase his newest school books.
He had been entertained greatly every week by the ongoing research he participated in with Daphne and Hermione, but he had promised himself that he would go ahead and learn more about several things, such as the mythical First Blaze that the various history books regarded as the best thing since the invention of a wand.
He wondered for a moment if Professor Binns would do a lesson about it, but it seemed that the school's resident history ghost didn't care about anything but Goblin Wars.
Harry absentmindedly walked into Flourish and Blott's to purchase his new school book and stared down the list.
On the list were a healthy dose of fiction books, and the second level of Transfiguration, Charms and Astronomy textbooks.
Harry had hoped to memorize several runic manuals, but the bookstore was packed. There was a man with blond, wavy hair and a bright smile signing books with a huge quill, talking animatedly, in the back of the bookstore, and literally hundreds of witches were in a bookstore that could only have legally held a quarter that many - legally, of course.
"Is there a Magical Fiction course that Second Years have to take?" Harry asked the bookstore owner.
"I've never heard of such a course. Is it new?" The older man glanced at Harry's book list. "Which books are fiction books."
Harry frowned, and pointed at several items. "All the books by Gilderoy Lockhart. I read them last year. I would have thought that a Magical Fiction course would start with classics like The Red Demon or Sorcerers of the Hill or-"
"Those aren't fiction books, my boy. Those are your Defense Against the Dark- Merlin's beard! Are you Harry Potter?" the man squeaked suddenly, and very loudly.
"Is Harry Potter here?" shouted a witch.
All hell broke loose.
"Is that a sword? Of course the Lord of the line of Potter would carry a sword!"
"He's so mature looking!"
"Would you like to go on a date with me?"
Harry blinked several times, rather rapidly, and attempted to walk away.
"You haven't bought your school books yet!" the shopkeeper shouted over the din.
"I was not aware I would be teaching Mr. Potter this year!" the author in the back shouted. Harry picked up a hint of desperation. There were nearly nobody with book-signing needs around the man anymore.
The attention went back to the man, and Harry breathed a sigh of relief. Then he narrowed his eyes at the Shopkeeper. "My books. Would you please?"
After all, Harry was always polite. There was never a threat in his words, or his demeanor. The threat came from his slight exhalations of magic through his eyes, three parts misery and seven parts shame, subtly changing the emotions of the people around them to feel a certain brand of failure and hopelessness about him. It was never impolite, and kept the majority of the riffraff away from him.
He usually did not utilize that specific ability of his eyes, however, as he remembered very clearly that he had driven one person to commit suicide with a heavy dosage to it. While the man may have been emotionally unbalanced, jumping off a bridge over the Thames was sort of extreme. Harry jumped in after the man and managed to drag him to shore, but the man never got out of the coma.
He felt justified in using it now. As expected, the men and women in the room shrank into themselves as an aura of despair and pure misery leaked from Harry. One man wondered if there were Dementors about Diagon Alley, to chase someone named Black. Harry, who didn't read the paper, decided to look into exactly who this Black fellow was. Probably a budding Dark Lord, following in the footsteps of Emeric the Evil or Loxias.
He grinned briefly. While he had not seen Daphne's speech with his eyes, he remembered the majority of it with perfect recall. It was quite interesting, after all. He quickly picked up his books, very politely declined free copies of Magical Me from Gilderoy Lockhart, the book signer, and left the store quickly.
He had a different destination in mind.
He walked beyond an ice cream shop, Ollivander's Wands, and several Potions suppliers, before ducking into the seediest area of Magical Britain - Knockturn Alley.
It was quite an area. There were hags hidden in dark corners, selling charmed fingers. The stores that lined the streets sold everything from magical trunks to magical trunks of a different sort. Harry decided that he needed neither the extra space for schoolbooks, nor new underwear, so he sauntered past quickly.
He passed the largest store yet - its storefront was as large as Gringott's, though it wasn't nearly as large within, named Borgin and Burke's, and noticed that the Malfoys were in the store. He made eye contact with Lucius Malfoy, and looked on impassively for a moment. The elder Malfoy's eyebrows shot into his hair, but Harry was gone.
He finally reached his target - a small bookstore that Daphne had listed when she was talking about the acquisition of new tomes. (There's Flourish and Blott's, of course, the lesser known Bookings, several in the other Alleys connected off of Diagon, and a very small place in Knockturn that specializes in a different perspective on Magical life.)
He pulled the door open and slipped into the semi-darkness, feeling right at home.
"What do you want?" The question was gruff, but Harry expected it. He could tell that it wasn't every day that a schoolboy with a sword walked into the man's bookstore.
"Books, of course."
The man nodded. "I have books. Books that your parents wouldn't-"
"My parents wouldn't mind, I'm sure of it." A stray beam of light from a grimy window caught Harry's green eyes, and the man pulled in his breath sharply.
"You're Lily's boy."
Harry frowned. "Yes."
"It seems that you take after your mother more, don't you. I'm Paul Simmons, class of Seventy Five. She worked with me on an Arithmancy project about Dark curses. Drove old Professor Vector grey, that paper did. Well, what books will you be having?"
"I need information. Historical information. Politics. Things about the Wizengamot's response to Dark Lords. And knowledge of the First Blaze."
The man stilled for a moment. "There's not much known about it..."
"I know the basics already. The First Blaze passed from Merlin to Godric Gryffindor. It was lost for several hundred years and resurfaced in the hands of Egbert the Egregrious. Egbert the Egregious gave it to Uric the Oddball. Uric the Oddball passed it onto Havelock Sweeting-"
"Sweeting, Withers, Livius Noname, and Dumbledore. Every educated man knows the story of the First Blaze. Of the mechanics, very few men alive can tell you of it."
Harry frowned. Even without the Sharingan activated, he could tell that the man knew exactly what he was talking about.
"I wouldn't normally do this, but being Lily's son, and knowing the basics already, I think I'll tell you a little bit about the Family Blood components. It's not something a lot of people know about outside of the Great Clans, but considering there are no more living Potters, someone has to tell you... Please take a seat."
The man, Simmons, pulled down the blinds, and locked the door, and lit several candles.
He began after a long pause, marshalling his thoughts. "The reason that we are ruled by the Wizengamot is not because they're the wisest or the most just. It is because at some point in the annals of history, they were the most powerful."
Harry blinked.
"There is no denying it. In a world of a Hogwarts Education, it is inconceivable that some Wizards would be substantially better in anything but their direct strengths, right? So why do certain family have seats on the ruling body of the Wizengamot?"
Harry realized that the names chosen for the members of the Wizengamot were rather arbitrary. While families like the Malfoys were rich and well respected, families like the Weasleys were rather poor, and most of them unskilled.
"Let's take the House Bones. Why is House Bones on the Wizengamot and not House Bell? They both came over with the Norman invasion, after all."
"It's because some Wizards have not only stronger blood than another, but different blood. The Potters have a very well documented ability - to heal intense injuries with the use of magic very easily. They also had a lot of it."
Harry nodded. He had realized that when Hermione had no idea what he was talking about the time he asked her to 'pump a bit of magic around' in order to heal a scrape.
"The reason is that each of the Greater Houses have a Bloodline Magic that enhances an ability, or gives them a power that other Wizards have no ability to replicate whatsoever. Some of these are lost Bloodlines - the Greengrass, Fudge and Ogden lines are the most prominent examples. The truth might be that a Wizard from one of those families had a very powerful ability that was unique to that individual, as opposed to the House."
The man took a drink of water from a glass that he retrieved from behind the counter.
"These unique abilities can be transplanted. As you might suspect by now, Merlin had one of them - the First Blaze. He discovered that if he donated a pint of blood and an once of flesh to a student willingly, he could transfer the First Blaze. So that was how Godric Gryffindor came into his power."
"What does the First Blaze do, exactly, besides Phoenix summoning?"
"It allows the wielder to use fire as a Phoenix would, to become one with it, though that is said to be very difficult. But the true power of the First Blaze is not Phoenix speech, or the complete mastery over the burning element. It is the phenomena known as the Trial by Fire, which can lock onto a target, and judge them. If they are found wanting by magic itself, they will be stricken down. Unfortunately, there are several ways to circumvent it. Many wizards have utilized those methods, and I have no reason to believe that Voldemort has not."
"What are these methods?"
"That's not something that should be known. I Obliviated myself of the memories to resist temptation."
Harry stared at him. The man was telling the truth, down to the tightening corners of his mouth that came with the innate worry of having your memories removed.
Harry nodded, and thanked the man, who had discreetly pulled out several books, promisingly entitled What the Wizengamot Doesn't Want You to Know, British Wizarding Relations in the Twentieth Century, and The Big Book of Everything a Lord Should Know.
"Do take a look around. Just be careful around the Dark Arts section. There are some books that will try to convince you to take a gander at them. They're generally not very nice. How old are you anyway, Harry?"
"Twelve."
"You don't act it."
Harry nodded slightly, and looked around, picking out comprehensive guides to less well-known subjects such as Alchemy. He thanked the man, paid twenty galleons or so, and left.
"Smart boy, that one." Simmons began opening his shop back up.
Mangekyo
"Is it, too late, tonight, to drag the past out into the light?"
A radio was playing a pop song a block away, and Harry was walking through the London night, a hood drawn over his head, and his eyes spinning.
"And I can't be holding on, to what you've got, when all you've got is hurt..."
Harry's face slipped for a moment, and the mask he wore shattered. Sorrow caked on his face like mud, as his eyes drew in all the misery of the world, removing it from existence, and projecting it onto him. He bit his lip.
It was getting worse. Ever since his magic had grown stronger, and he had begun to learn Legilimency with Daphne and Hermione (who had a strange aptitude for it), his eyes had become stronger and stronger.
"Have you come here for forgiveness, have you come to raise the dead. Have you come here to play Jesus, to the lepers in your bed?"
Harry pulled the misery out of the air as if he were a sponge, and he could feel the old, the homeless, the sick, and the destitute. He became their troubles, their trials, their thoughts.
"We get to carry each other, we get to... carry each other... Do you here me coming, Lord? Yeah, hear me call. Hear me knocking, knocking at your door... Feel me scratching at your door, feel me scratching, will you make me crawl?"
Harry walked beyond the range of the radio.
Mangekyo
September First dawned without any ceremony, and Harry, who had completely packed the night before. He had perfected a very special technique lately that combined the knowledge of the Kamui and the space-time teleportation that House Elves utilized.
His eyes opened, and they became the Kaleidoscope of the Mangekyo Sharingan. He pulled at a empty air, creating a rip in Space-Time, and stuffed his trunk into it, sealing it away in the all-encompassing space of the sixth dimension.
He briefly toyed with using Kamui to get to school, but decided that riding with his Uncle would not be that bad. He used a quick compulsion to convince his uncle that it was within the large man's best interest to take him to school, and sat down quickly in the backseat.
"Why don't you have your trunk?" Vernon asked, despite himself.
"Not necessary", Harry lied. He didn't want to say the 'M-word' and have to recast the compulsion. After all, there were limits to the effectiveness of his eyes.
Mangekyo
"What?"
Harry knew he had rather off-kilter luck. He could bluff eight people in a gambling den with a pair of threes until everyone folded but the man with a pair of an aces... and get a four of a kind. Then he could manage to break an entire carton of eggs just grabbing it on a supermarket shelf, and watch helplessly as the mess spilled all over him.
But having the portal to Platform Nine and Three Quarters simply turn into a normal brick wall of all things was sort of ridiculous. The illusion over the Kusanagi dropped for a moment, and Harry began to weave illusions as fast as he could with his Sharingan in order to keep the Muggles from getting the police involved. He sighed, and pushed his eyes to the next level.
"Mangekyo Sharingan."
It appeared that someone had sewn it shut with a strange collection of multicolored strings of magic which had been invisible to his normal Sharingan. Harry shrugged, concentrated on his experiences with the Kamui, and, layering his hand with magic, ripped through the strings as if they were made of spider silk. It definitely had the same sticky feeling to it, but it gave very easily.
Harry narrowed his eyes, wondering who would do something so utterly stupid, and walked past the barrier.
He ran straight into Dobby the House Elf.
"Harry Potter is a great and powerful wizard indeed, able to break House Elf magic!"
"I ran into a brick wall. The illusion over my sword broke, and I had to compel the various shrieking muggles to believe that nothing was out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, Dobby, I did it too well, and some idiot wondered why they weren't carrying swords too. So I had to craft an illusion that made them believe that they all did, in fact, have swords. Please don't do anything like that ever again."
Harry's eyes widened imperceptibly as Dobby began to hurt himself. It was sort of disgusting, to see a sentient creature punish itself out of two parts conditioning and one part habit. Harry simply walked away, shaking his head. When he looked back, Dobby was still punishing himself.
Harry pulled his trunk out of subspace and pushed it onto the trunk compartment, sitting down at the window, seeking to observe the first years, as well as the changes wrought to the newly Second-Years over the summer.
He didn't have long to wait as people began piling into the station.
"Mangekyo Sharigan."
It appeared that Daphne and Hermione were both quite a bit more observant than he thought they would be. Hermione's parents seemed rather worried when Hermione spotted the figure in the window nearly three hundred feet away. Daphne was alone when she showed up with her trunk, and she scanned the crowd and the train very quickly, then stared straight at him and began marching towards his compartment. Harry wondered if she had seen Hermione's hair, but realized that Hermione had been invisible from the angle that Daphne was approaching from.
"Interesting."
"Say what, Harry?"
"Never mind."
Before Hermione had arrived, Harry committed the First Years who were not on the train yet to memory. There was the Weasley girl, a boy with a very large camera, and a girl with dirty blond hair who seemed to be staring at a rather large Space-Time rip. Harry decided that if she could actually see the rips in Space-Time, she might be useful to have around.
After all, he seemed to be collect friends already.
Mangekyo
The train ride was not laden with interaction - it seemed to be a tradition for Harry not to talk much on train rides, but instead of standoffishness, the reason that Hermione was not say much was that Daphne had rested her head on Harry's shoulder once she had entered the compartment. And then she had fallen asleep.
Harry decided that waking the girl would produce louder consequences that simply letting her sleep, and it wasn't as if he were using that shoulder. He opened his mouth several times to speak to Hermione, but she put her fingers over her lips, and pointed at Daphne's sleeping form.
She seemed rather bitter for some reason that Harry could not comprehend, but Harry decided that it was probably because she missed summer already.
Harry and the Sandwich Cart Lady had an interesting conversation consisting of various hand signals and points, which resulted in several chocolate frogs and a pumpkin pasty that Harry knew Daphne liked. Hermione began reading quietly as Harry's finger's absentmindedly found Daphne's hair, and he began playing with it. After several moments, Harry noticed what he was doing, and stopped abruptly. Harry frowned. What had possessed him to do such a thing?
He shrugged, and enjoyed a rare chocolate frog - he didn't eat many sweets.
Mangekyo
"I should get another pet snake."
"No you shouldn't."
"I wouldn't mind much."
"Why shouldn't I get a snake, Hermione?"
"She thinks that it would be bad press for you, I think. I don't believe it would have much of an effect. After that stunt you pulled in the Entrance Hall last year..."
"You just want him to get a snake because you're in Slyt-"
"That makes no sense whatsoever."
Hermione turned up her nose. Harry grinned, despite himself, and Daphne smirked in victory.
It had become a rather common occurrence to see Daphne at the Gryffindor table. While some Slytherins had given her trouble for it several months ago, the dissenters' protests stopped immediately after Harry dueled Voldemort, and managed to stab the Dark Lord in the chest.
On a whole, the Gryffindors actually enjoyed Daphne's presence. She was witty, and most definitely not evil, as Ronald Weasley had claimed. Besides, Harry Potter liked her!
"Lovegood, Luna!" called the Hat.
Harry looked at the odd girl, and remembered that she had been staring at the Space-Time rips.
"Her family's known for having an overabundance of legitimate seers", Daphne said, rather helpfully.
Harry nodded slightly. "How often do prophecies happen anyway? The single Divination book I looked over didn't talk about Seers, but tea leaves and crystal balls."
"Oh, it could be once in a lifetime, or once a week, depending on the strength of the seer."
"That sounds very unreliable."
"Of course you're right, Hermione. You shouldn't ever trust Prophecies. They have a strange tendency to be both true and what you least expect."
"Weasley, Ginny!"
"GRYFFINDOR!"
Harry began eating the rapidly appearing food, looking forward to a productive year.
Mangekyo
Charms class had not changed much. Flitwick still squeaked excitedly when Harry demonstrated Sharingan-enhanced knowledge of charms and spells, and he seemed to expect very much of Harry after the duel with Voldemort.
Harry obliged. Everything Flitwick did, he flashed his Mangekyo Sharingan at, and learned immediately. Spending the rest of the time devoting his time to theory helped him understand the mechanics of the spell, and increased his overall understanding of magic by leaps and bounds.
Likewise, Potions class was not very different. Harry paired himself up with Daphne again, but Hermione worked with another Gryffindor this time around. Snape was more lenient, though he didn't need to be - Harry's potions were generally rather high quality.
Transfiguration class had McGonagall demonstrating more, and the class broke off to work on spellwork every day, but the workload had doubled. Harry bore the extra work that McGonagall gave him with ease - his work ethic was still unparalleled (if you wouldn't count Hermione), and he found that McGonagall seemed to enjoy teaching him ever more than she did before.
History of Magic was uninteresting, considering that he didn't care a whit about Goblin Wars. While they were fought often, the 'wars' were, in truth, short skirmishes in which a Goblin Warrior was tested against a Wizard. With a wand. The Goblins always lost. Binns described the wars to be huge affairs with members of every race in every nation fighting against invading forces of Goblins, but Harry knew better. The Goblins had always aligned themselves neutrally, and didn't attack without extreme purpose anyhow.
By the end of the week, Harry had begun planting Mandrakes - his stunt (which nobody attributed to anyone in the student body, and opted to believe that Heliopaths were the true cause) had killed off all of the old crop, though the Mandrakes were generally sold anyway. Daphne had chosen a huge pair of fluffy pink earmuffs to protect him against the Mandrake's screams, and he had accepted without looking.
But the trials lay ahead.
Mangekyo
"Settle down, class, settle down!"
His voice was annoying. His tone was worse. His demeanor was unctuous. And Daphne wanted to take her wand and...
She glanced over at Harry. Harry narrowed his eyes, and nodded in approval as Lockhart handed out "evaluation tests".
She assumed that the tests would be of things they learned the year before, but was suddenly and sorely disappointed.
Question 1. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favorite color?
She glared at the man. What was he playing at? She guess, and wrote Blond down, and had a private laugh.
Question 2. With what spell did Gilderoy Lockhart defeat the Wagga Wagga Werewolf?
She knew the answer. The Homorph- Wait. She had seen the charm mentioned in another text before. It was Transfiguration for Animal Lovers, a guide to the Animagus transformation.
She wasn't Hermione, nor did she possess a pair of nature-defying eyes, but her recall had always been decent.
The Homorphus charm is a charm created in Fourteen Thirty Seven and designed to coax a reversal out of a human stuck in a partially Animagus form. Use of this charm has no effect on Werewolves or...
She knew what the books said. That Gilderoy Lockhart had wrestled a Werewolf. She looked up at the man, who seemed to be rather... flimsy. She nodded once, and decided to toe the line. The Homorphous Charm, she wrote down quickly.
Neither Harry nor Hermione were doing so well. Harry had read Lockhart's book without using his eyes, and Hermione had saved the reading of the books for the train. She had been reading the Eight Thousand page treatise known as "Wandless Magic For Beginners. It was very difficult, but she had gotten through it, and was able to perform several spells already.
Hermione had heard very nice things about Lockhart from nearly everyone, and had met the man during a book signing. He seemed genuine enough, prattling on about Banshees to her.
She hadn't known anything about Banshees, but now she knew that he was completely not to be trusted. She stared at the questions.
Question Forty Eight. What is GIlderoy Lockhart's greatest ambition?
She growled, in a manner that she remember Harry did when he faced down the Cerberus. The various Gryffindors around her shivered.
Harry, however, was ineffably polite. He smiled graciously and thanked Lockhart for the test. The only indication of exactly how annoyed he was were his mannerisms.
Narrowed eyes, check. Daphne nodded. That was to be expected. Harry narrowed his eyes often.
Double blink, check. Hermione bit her lip. Harry was legitimately angry now.
Extremely tight grip over his sword? Daphne raised her hand. "Professor, may I be excused?"
"Sure thing, Ms..."
"Greengrass", Daphne replied smoothly, and she quickly left the room.
Hermione had raised her hand too, but Daphne had been a bit more conspicuous that she had been.
"Professor, is this test an accurate assessment of what we will cover this year?"
Harry's voice was soft, and deadly. Neville decided that Harry sounded a lot like Snape when he was angry. He may not have picked up on the cues that Daphne and Hermione did, but he suddenly remembered that Harry's voice had been exactly the same tone it was before he jumped down and confronted Voldemort in the act of torturing Professor Flitwick.
"Why yes, of course, my boy!"
"Will this material be on our O.W.L.s?"
"Well..."
"Will you be giving supplemental lessons in order to prepare us for the two most important exams in our lifetimes?"
"I might have thought that..."
"Say, what are your qualifications anyway, Professor?"
Harry was irrationally angry. He had given the School the benefit of the doubt, and they had screwed him two years in a row.
"Well, I'm a celebrated-"
"Novelist? I wasn't aware that Novelists could duel? Do show us some of the moves you used to wrestle the Wagga Wagga Werewolf, sir."
"Sure, if you would step down and assume the role of the Werewolf, I'll-"
"Oh, I don't think that will be necessary." Harry smirked. The man had fallen for it, hook, line and sinker. He pointed his wand at a desk, and slowly forced his magic through it.
The desk grew in size. His transfiguration may not have been smooth like McGonagall's, but it was effective. His visualization process was fantastic, even compared to the most creative of wizards.
He quoted the book directly. "And the Werewolf was twelve feet tall, with fangs larger than my arms, and claws that could take off your head in a single swipe."
Harry grinned, and the 'werewolf' bound at Lockhart.
The man gave a girlish scream as the werewolf chased him out of the classroom, and continued screaming until he tripped down the stairs and landed in heap at Albus Dumbledore's feet.
"My, my, Gilderoy. What has befallen you now?"
Dumbledore looked up, and saw a twelve-foot high werewolf staring him down, shrugged, and walked away. "That looks mightily like the description of the Wagga Wagga Werewolf. Please protect my school from it, Gilderoy."
Lockhart moaned.
Mangekyo
"That was a tad overboard, Harry", Hermione scolded, but she couldn't help but laugh.
The Second Years were crowded on the banister overlooking the staircase, where the Werewolf was giving half-hearted swings, and Lockhart was yelping and jumping out of the way, tripping over his own feet multiple times.
McGonagall was actually explaining the Transfiguration process to her Fifth-Year Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw classes. She ended up creating another one out of a small quill, and it immediately began battling Harry's 'Werewolf'. Lockhart managed to get away, and people winced as the transfigured beasts tore into each other.
"This is so cool", someone sighed dramatically.
Harry was more interested in how the transfigured construct seemed to have gained sentience, because he was definitely not directly it via the small golden Legilimenic strings that McGonagall was using.