Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Chapter 10: The Legend and the Memories
"Blade," Harry acknowledged calmly from the sofa, not taking his eyes off the book he was reading.
The man's bushy eyebrows rose up, but he hid it well. "That's Master Blade to you," he retorted gruffly, mumbling about how kids no longer had any respect for their elders. "I see you're getting along fine with your sensing – pulled the stick out of your ass, then?"
A tiny frown was the only indication from Harry that he was still displeased by that event, but he chose not to comment on it.
"So, you're here to teach me?" he asked, unable to hide a bit of his excitement. Suspicious the man may be, but Harry had seen how powerful he was.
"That's the plan," Blade replied, making Harry's stomach tighten in anticipation. "Might as well get started now –"
"Hold on a second there, old man," Callida walked into the room, wearing – Harry was pleased to see – clothes of her own that Dobby had gotten her. "I need to talk to you first."
Harry noticed the glance that passed between them, before Blade said, "All right, Potter. Why don't you go put your stuff upstairs," he gestured at Harry's homework, laid out on the table before him, "and meet me in the garden in twenty minutes?"
Harry nodded silently and gathered up his things with a quick flick of his wand. Moving past the two of them, he made his way up to his room and dumped his stuff on his bed, before collapsing angrily next to him.
He didn't fully trust either of the two of his teachers, and somehow, he didn't like the idea of the two of them putting their heads together. He wished he knew any spells that would help him eavesdrop, because he had no other way to know what they were doing.
He thought about using the cloak, but decided against it. The cloak could be seen through, and Callida would probably sense him coming from a mile away.
He fingered his wand, thinking about what the two of them could be talking about, and what the possible repercussions would be for him. Remembering Blade's instructions, he leapt off the bed and bounded down the stairs. Blade and Callida were nowhere in the house, and he spotted them outside.
Making his way to the garden, he saw that their conversation was obviously drawing to a close. Callida shifted slightly – something he was sure he wouldn't notice before – when she felt him coming, and ended their talk with a sharp nod of his head.
The two of them broke apart as Harry neared, and he couldn't help the irritation it sparked within him. Was he to be kept out of all loops of information?
"Don't look so worried, now, Harry," Callida's voice reached him, snapping him back to attention, "It was just a harmless talk. I just needed Blade to pick some stuff up for me –"
"But more on that later," Blade interjected roughly, "We've wasted enough time. Potter, it's time we took your magical training up a level."
Harry felt excitement explode in the pit of his stomach. Unable to keep a grin off his face, he nodded eagerly and pulled his wand out.
"We're going to duel," said Blade, "so that we can figure out a style and tailor it to suit your needs. But first," he said, "we need to observe, and learn."
As if on cue, Dobby appeared with his customary crack! Hovering in midair in front of him was –
"A Pensieve," Harry commented, raising his eyebrows.
"You and I will be observing some of the common styles of duelling, Potter," Blade explained, waving his wand and directing the Pensieve to float over and come to rest on the stump. "You will pick up the styles you find interesting, and we'll see which one suits you best."
"And if I find that I have an aptitude for more than one?"
"Then we modify them to make your own. Understand this very clearly, Potter," the old man said, his eyes glinting, "these styles are just a guide, a foundation for you to build a pillar on. Your style will be unique to you, and only you; otherwise you'll be dead before you can cast your first spell on the battlefield."
Blade's words seemed to echo in the silence that settled in the clearing after he'd finished speaking. Harry swallowed, taking in the seriousness of his teacher's words.
"Can I watch?" Callida asked curiously, her eyes shining. Blade gave a grunt, which she took as a Yes, and bounded over next to them.
"On three, then," Blade said, as they watched the clear liquid in the bowl mist over and condense, like somebody had dipped a wet paintbrush into clear water. "One...two...three –"
All three of them bent forward, and the very next instant, Harry was standing in a battlefield, watching spells fly around him. For a second, his mind screamed at him to run, before he realized that the spells were flying harmlessly through him; unable to do him any harm.
"I think you'll find this one familiar," Blade said, and indeed, Harry was blinking rapidly as he saw the familiar figure of Albus Dumbledore duelling his way through the marketplace where the fight was taking place. The Headmaster of Hogwarts was obviously younger, and his face was like a mask of steel as he waved and twirled his wand, advancing almost without effort. Everywhere he moved, tigers and lions burst into existence and charged the fighters, droplets of waters condensed and then froze to form projectiles by the dozens, and shrapnel and debris were transfigured into shields and blocks. Dumbledore transfigured, conjured and shielded his way through the masses, occasionally throwing in a spell of such devastation that tens of people were thrown backwards; they didn't get up again.
Harry watched, open-mouthed – the Headmaster was a machine, it was like nothing could stop his progress.
"As you can see, that's Albus Dumbledore -" Blade began, only to be cut off by Callida.
"That's Dumbledore?" Callida asked, and then looked sheepish as Blade threw her a piercing glare. "Er, sorry. Continue."
"Yes, as I was saying –" Callida blushed, "that's Dumbledore. His style is also called The Master, because he's reached the pinnacle of his art – Transfiguration – and can use it to such an extent that he's almost unbeatable in a fight. Of course, he also mixes it up every now and then with one of the esoteric spells he's so fond of."
He paused, as Dumbledore vanished silently and appeared on a rooftop, before resuming his attack from his vantage point. "As you can see, the Headmaster also relies on Disapparating and Apparating, which has only gotten better over time after he acquired his phoenix."
Callida opened her mouth to comment, but thought the better of it and remained silent. Blade noticed, and smirked.
"Nevertheless, Albus' personal style," Harry noticed the slip-up; the man was on speaking terms with the Headmaster. "has earned him the title of der Taschenspieler." At Harry and Callida's blank looks, he explained, "The Conjuror."
'The Conjuror' Harry repeated in his head, admitting that the words were rather apt for his Headmaster. He was a force of nature on the battlefield, mutating and changing the world as he saw fit –
"Blink and you'll miss it," Blade warned, and Harry snapped to attention, "the next person who we'll study is part of this memory as well, and he should be making an entrance right...now-"
Harry turned his eye to the marketplace, and was given pause as he saw...nothing. He was about to turn to Blade for an explanation, when people in the square – the Allied Wizards, he realized – dropped to the ground without warning, clutching at their throats and stomachs. "What-?" he began to ask, but his question was answered for him again.
A man appeared on the rooftop next to Dumbledore's. He was tall and thin like the Headmaster, with light golden hair in sharp contrast to Dumbledore's auburn. In his hand was a dark wand, which Harry recognized faintly but couldn't place.
The man blurred out of view without explanation, and Albus was blown back off the roof. He only just managed to arrest his fall before he hit the ground, and righted himself gracefully a few inches off the paved floor of the market. Dumbledore raised a transparent shield around him, barely noticeable only because of the sunlight glinting off the sides. It was like he'd trapped himself inside a giant invisible fishbowl.
The next second, spells crashed against the shield in a spectacular explosion of colours and sound, making both Harry and the people in the square step back unconsciously. As they recognized the battle going on in the square, they backed away and lined along the edge –
"Why are they doing that?" Harry asked, "why're they running away? Shouldn't they help Dumbledore –"
"It's an old wizarding tradition," Blade replied gruffly, "when two wizards of such obvious power meet, and especially people like them who are pivotal to the battle, they are allowed to duel on thei –"
The rest of his words were lost as another barrage of spells bulleted into Albus' shield, making it flicker for a second. To Harry's surprise, Dumbledore raised the shield after it was done and shot off a volley of his own to the left of where the attack had come from.
"He anticipated his opponent's movements. Grindelwald," Dumbledore said, confirming the suspicion in Harry's mind, "was prodigiously fast on the battlefield, but even he made the mistake of falling into a pattern of attack. Which, in turn," Blade paused for a moment as Harry was treated to the sight of Grindelwald being hit by a series of spells and crashing spectacularly to the ground, "harmed him severely."
"How does he move so fast?" Harry asked, his eyes on Grindelwald, who'd gotten up and resumed the fight almost instantly, "It's almost like – "
Harry paused. It was almost like him when he was on water. Blade must have noticed the dawning comprehension on his face, because he nodded.
"Gellert Grindelwald is one of the three people in the world to have killed a Nundu," Blade said, an inscrutable look in his eyes. "Legend has it that he hunted and killed it in the harsh mountains of Kenya, before he cut his heart out and ate it raw on the ground where the dead beast lay."
"He killed a Nundu alone?" Harry asked, his mouth falling open. Attempting to capture the beast with less than a hundred wizards was counted as suicide, "How?"
"The same way one wizard alone managed to kill a basilisk, I suppose," Blade replied with a smirk, making Harry blush. "Nevertheless, much like you, he gained some gifts from the Nundu – in other words, his inhuman speed on land."
"Wait, you killed a Basilisk alone?" Callida asked in awe, her eyes wide in shock.
Harry ignored her, not wanting to get into the retelling of that particular tale, and instead asked Blade, "Why is it that killing a Basilisk or a Nundu gives wizards such power?"
"Olde magicke," Blade answered, his eyes on Harry's. "When magic was first created, according to Pagan mythology, there were some laws laid down. Amongst them were details of some acts, some incalculable acts of power, some deeds that held rewards of their own. Powerful acts deserved powerful rewards –"
Harry knew that he should have considered his own defeat of the Basilisk, but all he could think about after Blade had spoken was of his mother's sacrifice for him, and the incomprehensible power in her action that had managed to turn back even Death itself.
"But that is only one theory," Blade continued, drawing Harry's attention again, "another one is the Sentient Being Theory." Blade paused for a second to gather his thoughts, and something in Harry's mind clicked at that explanation, and he waited for Blade to explain further. "There is a hypothesis that when a magical structure lives for a very long time, it manages to become barely sentient. For example, take your own school, Potter. The moving stairs and changing doorways didn't appear in the school until five hundred years of its founding."
Harry was reminded of just how old Hogwarts really was, while Blade's words brought up a faint memory of him reading about this theory in the library. "But how does this relate to the Basilisk?" he questioned, unable to make the connection.
"Basilisk venom is stored in a small sac in the roof of the snake's mouth," Blade explained, "and it's teeth are hollow as well, to allow it to push its venom into anything it bites. Both Harry and Callida shivered at the explanation, "the particular Basilisk you killed was nearly a thousand years old," Callida gasped again, "and I don't think it ever had the need to inject its venom into something, which meant that the sac didn't have to produce any new venom. As the poison steadily grew older over time, it gathered magic of its own –"
"You mean there's venom inside of me and it's sentient?" Harry asked, disgusted. "I thought Fawkes had destroyed it!"
Blade fixed him with a piercing gaze. "Nothing can destroy Basilisk venom, Potter, not even Phoenix tears. Hell, the only thing that can hold the venom is the Basilisk's tooth itself, which is why the venom has never been harvested and used yet. Dumbledore's phoenix only managed to stop the venom from harming you, it couldn't stop it from affecting you."
Harry could only nod, slightly repulsed by the fact that he had something as repulsive as Basilisk venom inside of him. "I'm guessing that the venom dissipated over time in your bloodstream but managed to augment your magic a bit, allowing you mobility and speed over water, coupled with brilliant reflexes."
Harry digested all of this for some time, before his eyes narrowed. "Who are you?" he asked Blade, watching his teacher stiffen ever so slightly. "You're this old man whom I've never heard of before, but you hypothesize about obscure magical theories, have memories of Dumbledore and Grindelwald's fights –"
"Who I am isn't important," Blade interjected roughly, "it's what I can teach you." At Harry's mutinous glare, he sighed. "Look, Potter," he said, "I swear I'm on your side, I literally did. That should be enough for you now."
Harry decided to let the matter drop for now, but by no means was he over his curiosity about his teacher. He definitely deserved some investigation into his background on Harry's part.
But Harry kept his cool as Blade changed memories and introduced another wizard. From Gellert 'The Predator' Grindelwald, they moved on to Dante the Inferno, and kept going past Mwenye the Strong and Loxias the Sneaky. They wound up watching Callisto the Beautiful weave her way through a duel, before Harry decided to comment.
"Blade, er, Master," Harry said, erring on the side of caution and being polite, "all of this is really fascinating, but I don't really think I'm cut out for any of these. I mean," he said, noticing Blade raise his eyebrows, "all these people, they're masters of magic and their craft, and I'm just a student. I mean – er," he petered off, but Callida picked up the slack for him.
"They've mastered different areas of magic and built it into their styles, while Harry here can't claim anything similar," she said, and Harry nodded.
"So you didn't pick up anything from these memories?" Blade asked, seeming amused for some reason. "Didn't see anything you liked?"
Now denying that would be a lie. "Well, I really liked how Dumbledore's mixture of shielding and attacking, and Dante's relentless attacking as well. And there was Gladstone's invisible spells, and Callisto's fire spell –" He definitely liked the latter, the woman wielded fire like it was a toy.
"Then it's been a successful morning," Blade said, "you've done more than I was hoping for. Just one last memory, and I think we'll be done for now."
"Who's the wizard?" Harry asked, somewhat relieved that the entire thing was coming to an end, because he could feel the mildest of headaches making itself known.
"Oh, I think you'll recognize him," Blade said quietly.
And Harry did. When the smoke cleared and the memory came into focus, the first thing Harry saw were snake-like features set in a pale face. The eyes weren't scarlet and snake-like yet, but the long skeletal fingers and the slit nose was. There was no doubt as to who it was -
"Voldemort," the name had escaped his mouth before he could realize it. The Dark Lord looked completely relaxed in battle, amused even, as he saw his Death Eaters lay waste to – Harry felt his stomach drop out when he realized where they were – Diagon Alley.
Screams of pain and fear rent the air, and the Dark Mark hovering above everybody cast a luminescent greenish glow on everything around Harry. It was a scene straight of a nightmare, complete with the smoke rising from the cobblestone path and the fires raging in the stores.
"For the Dark Lord!" a woman's scream rent the air, and Voldemort allowed one corner of his lips to lift up. He tilted his head to the right very deliberately, as if he was contemplating something.
The next second, he began to walk forward slowly, his feet making no noise at all.
Wasn't he going to cast a spell? Harry was confused, because Voldemort's wand lay limply in his hand.
A stray spell whizzed through the air towards Voldemort, but he tilted his head and it flew past into the darkness behind him. After a second, Harry realized that the spell had never been a stray one, as Dumbledore walked into his field of focus for the second time. This time around, though, he was much older and much more familiar to Harry, resplendent in his purple robes and his white beard in stark contrast.
"Dumbledore," Voldemort acknowledged, tilting his head as he continued his inexorable march forward. Dumbledore returned it with one of his own, and Harry realized with a start that they were actually bowing to each other before their duel and recognizing each other as potential threats.
Voldemort finally stopped, and for the first time, his grip around his wand tightened. It was he who made the first move, sending all the debris and rubble around them flying at Dumbledore. The old wizard retaliated by transfiguring them into daggers and reversing their direction of motion, making them fly at Voldemort instead.
The Dark Lord never moved. Waving his wand in a wide arc, he conjured a huge stream of green flame and obliterated with his cursed magic, before he thrust his wand forward. A Chimera of green fire charged Dumbledore, he vanished in a whirl of fire, before he reappeared behind Voldemort.
The Chimera had dissipated into the air in a haze of green power, but still Voldemort held his ground. Another graceful wave of his wand and the ground around him shot up in spikes, forcing Dumbledore to Apparate away again even before the Headmaster could make his attack.
Fear travelled up Harry's spine when something struck him; the Dark Lord hadn't spoken a single word throughout the battle, but he was looking as calm and composed as ever. If Dumbledore had been an unstoppable force, Voldemort was an immovable wall, obliterating anything and everything Dumbledore sent his way and retaliating with crushing spells of his own.
Hopelessness was the next emotion to seize him as he watched Voldemort release no less than thirteen curses at the same time, all of them fairly sizzling with power. I'm supposed to fight that? He wondered, his insides cold. Voldemort would crush him like an insect!
"I think that's enough for now," Blade said quietly, as if he was able to sense Harry's distress. He grabbed both Harry and Callida by the arms and hoisted them up, and the next thing he knew, he was standing on the grass outside Blade's house. It was around midday, because the sun was directly above them in the sky. "Voldemort, as you can see, liked to remain rooted to one spot and dominate everything around him. That doesn't mean that he wasn't versatile and fast in the battle, though; he could move faster than a viper when the situation called for him. His actions and deed on the battlefield, however, gave him and his style the title 'The Giant.'"
"Apt," Harry couldn't help but comment, his mouth feeling dry. "How am I supposed to defeat that?"
There was a long second of silence, before Blade burst out laughing. Caught off-guard, Harry couldn't do much but splutter indignantly at his teacher. It was a long time before Blade stopped laughing, wiping his eyes and still giving the odd snort. Before Harry could protest hotly, he said, "There's no chance in hell you'd be able to defeat the Dark Lord in a fight like that, Potter," he said with another chuckle, "there's a reason he's called the darkest wizard of the last seven centuries."
"Then what do you suggest I do?" Harry bit out angrily.
"There's a saying, Potter," Blade replied, "Never fight with an idiot, because he will drag you down to your level and defeat you. Now, I'm not calling you an idiot, but I feel that's your best bet to give him a run for his money."
Drag him down to my level? Harry contemplated the wisdom in those words, and accepted that his teacher was probably correct. From what he'd seen of Voldemort's duel, there wasn't a snowball's chance in Hell that he would be able to take a fully-powered Dark Lord in a fair fight without decades of dedicated practice first.
A sharp stinging sensation in his side brought him back to the real world sharply, as he doubled over, clutching his chest and wheezing. Blade was circling him, his wand out and tip glowing. "Forgotten already, Potter?" he asked, smirking down at Harry. "Now, we duel."
And duel they did.
XoX
It had been two and a half weeks since Blade and Callida had both begun tutoring him, and Harry had never been gladder to see Diagon Alley in his life. His entire body ached, his mind was still prone to wandering off at certain times – Harry swore that he was beginning to develop mild schizophrenia. Thankfully, he'd been allowed half the day off from his lessons; however, he did have to research the charms Blade had placed on him to disguise him instead.
It was a novel experience for him to walk into the Leaky Cauldron and go unrecognized, and he had stiffened for a moment on his entry before realizing that nobody would know him with his brown hair and dark eyes. He'd walked straight through the crowd without being halted, made his way into the Alley, and was now walking along the cobblestone path towards Gringotts.
He froze midway, though, when he heard a familiar voice float through the air. "Honestly, you two!" Mrs. Weasley's unmistakeable shriek pierced his eardrums, and he spun around on the spot to see the entire Weasley family following him down his path to the Wizarding Bank. For a second, his stomach tightened and he felt a tightening in his chest as he beheld the bright red hair and abundance of freckles, before he turned away and began walking faster.
Thankfully, the Weasleys weren't done by the time he'd made his withdrawal and left the bank. The goblins at Gringotts hadn't made any comment on his sudden reappearance in the Wizarding World, giving Harry the distinct impression that they couldn't care less about Wizarding affairs. Harry kept his head down as he went about his purchases swiftly, noticing more and more familiar faces. Dean Thomas was looking interestedly at a book on Wizarding Art at Flourishes and Blotts, the Patil twins and Lavender Brown were shopping at Madam Malkin's when he walked past, Terry Boot was buying supplies at the apothecary, while –
If seeing the Weasley's had cast a shadow on his day, this was twice as bad. Cedric Diggory was walking down Diagon Alley, his parents flanking him on either side. The Hufflepuff had definitely seen better days; his face was pale and there were dark shadows under his eyes, his hair was in a mess that would've made Harry proud.
Harry felt his temper rise as he beheld the coward; he was still angry because of Cedric's desertion at the graveyard. The Hufflepuff had left a boy three years his junior to fend for himself against Voldemort, and Harry wished he could pull his wand out and give the boy a piece of both his mind and his magic.
He was also simultaneously reminded of all the letters Cedric had sent him, which had been left unopened and chucked away. With a greater jolt, he remembered the letters other students had sent him, all of which he hadn't replied to.
Great, Harry thought sarcastically. He'd probably managed to alienate whatever paltry support he'd gathered amongst his peers. Just fantastic. It just isn't my day, is it?
And indeed it wasn't. Not ten minutes after he'd bypassed Cedric and stopped at Florean Fortescue's for an ice-cream, did he realize that he was being followed. He hadn't chanced a glance yet, but whoever was doing so wasn't being very discreet about it.
Harry sped up almost unconsciously, aware of the bags in his hand that would impede him if he reached for his wand. The only upside was that it wouldn't show up in his record if he did cast magic, because the Alley was so saturated with it.
He turned into a dead end, and cursed when he heard the heavy, unobtrusive footsteps follow him inside. "Harry, wait -" he froze, before turning around sharply.
"What do you want?" he asked harshly, his voice deeper than normal thanks to Blade's magic. "Who are you?"
"Drop the act, Harry. I know it's you," Ron said, "I'm your bes -"
Ron stopped short, the tips of his ears turning red. Ignoring his thumping heart, Harry pressed on this advantage. "I don't know what you're talking about," he growled, hoping that he sounded threatening. "Leave, now."
"Yeah, right," Ron couldn't help but scoff, "nobody else slouches the way you do and still manages to look so proud while doing it."
Harry straightened his shoulders without thinking about it, and then winced. He'd just given the game away, and judging from Ron's triumphant grin, the redhead knew it.
"What do you want, Ron?" he asked icily, feeling satisfied as his tone wiped the smile off the redhead's face.
"Harry, I know you're angry at me -"
"Understatement," Harry cut in, making Ron stutter.
"Yeah, er, I guess, but there's more to it than you think," he said, managing to catch Harry's attention. "I think – I think -"
Ron's face looked pained, almost like he knew that he was about to blurt out something stupid, and Harry couldn't push down the hollow feeling in his chest at the expression; it was something he'd seen on Ron's face many times.
"I think I was cursed to stay away from you," Ron finished hastily, and then twitched involuntarily when he realized how badly he'd delivered his case.
Silence stretched between them for a long eternity. "You think," Harry said slowly, making sure to emphasize on the word and show Ron just what he thought about the redhead performing the action, "you were cursed to stay away from me?"
Ron must have realized that he was treading dangerous waters, because he began amending himself sharply. "No – Yes! I mean – I think there was some sort of compulsion on me – those charms really do exist, you know -"
"Ron," Harry said coldly, "Shut up." Ron thankfully complied, his mouth opening and closing silently for a few seconds at Harry's uncharacteristic rudeness, before he snapped it shut.
"Good," Harry continued. "Now calm down and tell me what you want to say. And," he added, "you better make it good, because I'm very, very angry at you."
Ron gulped, and began again, slowly this time. "Harry," he said nervously, "this Summer, I realized that I was under a spell of some kind. I was eating lunch out in the orchard one day when I realized that I'd eaten six corned beef sandwiches."
And outsider might think that Ron had gone crazy for saying such a thing; and taken Harry with him for reacting with a raised eyebrow, but Harry had been friends with Ron long enough to known that Ron hated corned beef with a passion. It was probably the only food that he didn't like, much to the amusement of their fellow Gryffindors.
"Yeah, I know, right?" Ron said, relieved that he'd managed to get Harry's interest. "For a second, I thought that I'd acquired a taste for it, before I thought that I still hated it. And that was the first time when I realized something was off. I felt it again when I found myself reading one of Gilderoy Lockhart's books, I loathe that git and his stuff. And then I started to suspect that something was off, y'know, and that I was under a spell of some sort. I know it sounds like I was fretting over something really small, but there was this niggling feeling at the back of my head that just wouldn't leave me alone no matter what. It started the moment I realized I was eating those sandwiches, Harry, and it wouldn't let go."
"The point, Ron," Harry stated firmly, even though his voice was nowhere near as cold as it was before.
"Anyway, I began to suspect that somebody had messed with my mind, because whenever I'd think about this stuff, I'd get raging headaches, and those are classic symptoms – and it only got worse for a few days, before I managed to pull out of it -"
"Pull out of it?" Harry asked curiously, "just like that?"
"Er, not really," Ron shifted uncomfortably, "I had the mother of all headaches and one of my ears began bleeding to, but I managed to power through this sort of fog in my mind before I finally came to my senses. And then I realized that," Ron paused here, like he was unable to continue. Harry raised an eyebrow, obviously prompting him to do so anyway.
Ron took a few deep breaths, before his blue eyes met Harry's. "I failed as your friend last year, Harry," he said grimly, "I ditched you when there was some nutter out to kill you."
"But if what you told me is true, it wasn't you fault," Harry said, almost disbelieving at how great a turn his day had taken. Hope ballooned in his chest but he squashed it down mercilessly, not allowing him to have his optimism crushed prematurely.
"It is true, Harry," Ron said, his blue eyes pleading. "This isn't some excuse," Harry opened his mouth to argue, but Ron beat him to it.
"I won't lie, Harry, I've always been a bit jealous of you," Ron's confession caught him off guard, and his friend saw it and forged onwards. "But I'd gotten over it, Harry, I swear! Please, believe me, I haven't got much time, Mum's probably looking for me -"
"But how can I trust you again?!" Harry nearly shouted, his voice rising sharply. He just couldn't trust Ron again like that, not when he'd been all alone last year and had a rude lesson about trust this very summer.
"I stood in front of the man I thought was a mass murdered to protect you, mate," Ron said, his ears now matching his hair. Harry's thoughts came to a screeching halt, and processed what Ron had just said.
The years of their friendship flashed through his mind, right from their first meeting on the Hogwart's Express, to how Ron had shielded him from Sirius with his broken leg; and at that instant, he knew his reply was going to shape his future for years to come.
The silence between them seemed to stretch for an eternity. Ron didn't speak, but his eyes spoke volumes.
"We need to talk," Harry finally said. "I've missed you, mate."
Ron's eyes shone with clear relief as he gave a yell of joy, before he strode forward and seized Harry in a bear hug. For once in his life, Harry reciprocated and hugged his best friend back just as tightly, finally letting the balloon in his chest expand and fill him with warmth.
Voldemort couldn't hold a candle against the happiness he was feeling now. As the two of them broke apart and Ron asked him where he'd been and told him how the entire Wizarding World was in an uproar over his disappearance.
Harry couln't care less. He felt like he could take the world on now that he had his best friend by his side.
Somewhere far away from the two reuniting friends, Hermione Granger frowned as she realized that she'd buttered only one side of her toast instead of two as she was wont to do. The minor headache she'd been experiencing over the summer, which even a visit to the optometrist couldn't solve, seemed to return with a vengeance.
She frowned. Something didn't add up.
XoX
Author's note: That's all for now. While Ron and Hermione's exit and then return may seem pointless, I assure you that their situations are pivotal to the plot.
Do remember that I staunchly maintain a 'No Comment' policy before the Manipulative!Dumbledore comments start flying. To be fair, I quite like the old man, though. And the nickname 'Dumbles' got old really fast.
That said, Harry's duelling style was left out here on purpose, and shall be revealed in later chapters.
Till then, review! And I hope you enjoyed this chapter and the story so far.
Regards,
Warlord.