Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or its characters, those belong to J.K. Rowling.

Rated M for safety, and mature themes.

"Spoken dialog."

'Thoughts' / internal thinking

Midnight Gold, the Rise of the Forgotten Lord

Chapter 10: Recruitment

Rewritten Edition

Reposted 23th April 2013

Revised andBeta by Joe Lawyer

Following his target was rather easy; she didn't even notice his presence. Professor Flitwick had provided him with a list of students who he believed were suitable for helping him.

Naturally, his head of house had asked why Harry was interested, and he had, in turn, given the professor a few half-truths to explain it. He didn't particularly like lying to his head of house, but he just didn't like sharing his business with others either, especially people he had only just met, or hardly talked to outside of lessons. After all, he had a right to his privacy, but at the same time he didn't want to possibly alienate the professor so early on in his schooling. There were many years of school yet ahead of him.

And 'trust easily given is also easily discarded,' as one ancient philosopher once noted. He would only trust those who had earned it; he wouldn't make the same mistake others had by blindly trusting others.

Submerging into his codex, he pulled up the memory of the discussion, looking for anything that he may have missed or done wrong.

Entering his head of house's office, he saw his head of house was waiting for him to sit down. After the usual exchange of pleasantries about one's health, they got to the matter at hand. "Harry, what can I do for you today; surely you have better things to do than talk to little old me" Professor Flitwick asked cheekily, with a smile, looking at his student with curiosity.

Chuckling in response to his joke, he answered similarly with a light smile, "Well, I was wondering if you knew of any students that could possibly help me train in the practical side of DADA," he raised his hand to stop his head of house from interrupting him, already guessing what the next question would be. "First, Penny is and has been extremely helpful, and could no doubt help me with this as well, but I believe it would be unfair to her. She has her own duties, as well her OWLs to study for; it would be selfish of me to take up any more of her time," he answered, seeing Flitwick nod in understanding before continuing on.

"That is also the reason why I discounted 5th and 7th years; I could ask 4th years, but they themselves have yet to master the OWL material, coupled with the recent history of poor DADA professors, I thought it would be best to seek out an individual who's taking DADA due to passion and career interest. After all, these students would naturally spend significant additional time studying for it, to make up for the lack of adequate teaching in the subject. Then I remember from some of my readings that a strong proficiency in Charms is needed for any Auror candidate, hence the reason why I came to you," gesturing to his head of house.

Flitwick just nodded before sipping some tea; he looked at him again, seeming to be weighing him up, before speaking again, his voice laced with interest. "Indeed, very logical reasoning, something that I would expect from all my Ravenclaws. However, I'm most interested in finding out what your motivation is," the half-goblin asked with a surprising amount of seriousness.

Deciding to take his own slow sip of tea to buy himself some time to come up with an acceptable response, he answered, "I was rehashing the fight with the troll in my mind; I realized that I never really had to aim. Since it was so big, and almost at point-blank range the entire time, it was near impossible to miss. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was more lucky than skilled. Frankly, I'd rather rely on skill, than luck," looking over the desk, he saw Flitwick nod in understanding.

He took another sip of his tea, "Luck can come and go, but skill remains; the more skilled you are, the less 'luck' you might need to come out on top," he admitted sagely, hoping it would help persuade his head of house to help him.

"Good to know that the events of Halloween didn't go to your head, unlike some students," Flitwick replied in an equally sagely tone, clearly referring to Neville and Ron, whose egos seemed to have gotten even bigger, which made them even more unbearable to be around. However it did have the benefit of keeping Draco and his goons focused on Neville, rather than everyone else. They spent several minutes in comfortable silence before continuing, Flitwick obviously thinking about students who could be of help. "I can think of several individuals who could help you improve; I'll shortly send you a list with a couple of names," he replied.

"Thank you, hopefully one of them will agree to help me," Harry replied.

"Now off with you, I need to get back to my marking," with that his head of house dismissed him.

"Thank you again for your time Professor, and thanks for the tea," Harry responded with a sincere smile.

Pulling out of the short memory, he continued to shadow one student his head of house had recommended. He was currently following them under his father's cloak. Flitwick had given him five names; however two of them were from Slytherin so he discarded them immediately, due to the fact that he was distrustful of them. Mainly because they would most certainly try to take advantage of him, mostly due to his age, and a number other factors, plus he didn't know where they stood on the whole blood status issue.

He knew there were exceptions to the rule in Slytherin, such as Daphne and Tracy, but they were few and far between. It had taken ages for them to move away from just being associates working together for mutual gain in their classes, to being friends of a sort.

The lions were discounted as well, simply due his doubting that they would take it seriously enough. And would probably just use it as a chance to hex him and joke about it later in the common room. So that left the last candidate on the list, a puff, by the name of Tonks. However, he already had some doubts after seeing how clumsy the girl was over the course of the week following her, since the meeting with his head of house last Sunday evening.

But she also had a number of factors in her favour, first, was that Puffs were well known for honouring their deals, and second, from his observations, the girl seemed to be reasonable. Then there was the fact that she was already doing her own hard training outside of class, so there was chance he would be able to strike up a deal to co-train with her.

After a while of following her, they reached and entered a disused classroom; the girl then going about setting up several 'targets' by transfiguring random objects in the room into targets; these reminding him of the typical targets at an archery range, with a gold bull's-eye in the centre, before the mentioned targets started moving randomly, likely via animation charms.

Watching her dance around and dodge imaginary spells, it felt like she was preparing for war, with the way she was simultaneously firing off spells and hitting the targets with a surprising amount of accuracy. Every time one of the targets was destroyed, it would be repaired by magic, and continued its intended task.

Harry continued to watch the heavily concentrating girl for a further five minutes, who was now panting heavily and sweating up a storm from dodging and rolling away from imaginary spells, while countering with her own spells. If he was honest, he would definitely say that he was impressed, never before had he seen someone taking their studies to this level before, it was worthy of a Ravenclaw.

Finally, the animation charms on her targets ran out and they fell to the floor, closely followed by the girl who fell on her back and looked up at the ceiling while panting hard and trying to regain her breath. He waited a few moments before making his presence known, appearing from thin air behind the girl before he spoke, "That was impressive." This statement caused the girl to jump up and turn around quickly, levelling her wand at the now visible Harry.

"Who in the hell are you, and how did you get in here?!" the girl yelled, her hair changing towards a crimson red colour, whilst keeping her wand levelled at him, rock steady despite her obvious fatigue.

Looking around the room a bit before answering "Does it matter? If I intended to harm you, do you think I would have taken the time to talk to you?" he shot back before continuing, "After all, you were so intently practising, that at any point I could have cursed you in the back. Besides if this how you treat someone with a business offer then I may have to find someone else," before starting to make his way over to the door.

"Wait!" Tonks yelled out, lowering her wand. "What is it you want to discuss?"

"Simple, I am in need of a partner to practise practical DADA with, since the teaching quality here is so low," replying to the question in a factual tone. "I'm sure you'd agree with me that the teaching standard has dropped in the subject over the years, surely you have noticed the same during your own time here," shooting the question back in turn.

"How does that involve me then?" she replied, her hair changing to a more pinkish shade.

"Simply put, you were the most suitable choice for additional instruction, as I know you desire to work in law enforcement after graduation," Harry replied, surprising her with his knowledge, whilst picking up one of the fallen chairs and moving it behind one of the desks, before making himself comfortable. "I can help you with that," he finally added. "From what I know, a lot of positions in the ministry are based on contacts, rather than personal skill. And I also know that if you want the best equipment for some of the more high-risk positions, and therefore the best chance to see old age in one piece, you have to buy it yourself," he looked intently over at the young woman, while sitting down at the desk, before gesturing to the fallen chair opposite him, his intent clear.

She made no move to join him, yet he continued on, "The standard dragon-hide combat vest costs around two thousand galleons. With all the supporting gear on top of that, you're looking at the same again, just for the standard gear alone. Do you know how much you earn per year as an auror?" He asked.

"No, I don't," she admitted. "But you tell me, you're the Ravenclaw out of the two of us," Tonks replied in an annoyed tone, now moving towards the offered chair and putting her wand away.

'Good, I got her attention; luckily I read up on magical law enforcement' he thought, before continuing his speech, as soon as he saw that she was comfortable. "For your first two years of training, you're looking at around two thousand galleons per year. After you complete your basic training and become an auror, you're looking at around six and half thousand a year. You won't reach nine thousand galleons a year until you're a grade 3 auror, and that's typically only after six to eight years of frontline work coupled with your two training years. So all told you won't be there until you're around 26, at the earliest, unless something major happens to get you promoted faster than normal. Of course, you will have to compete against your male counterparts for any position, who will be favoured over you," he said disapprovingly.

Seeing the look of concentration on her face, he could tell she was thinking through everything he said carefully. Several minutes passed before he gave a slight cough, drawing her attention back to him, "During all this you are obviously going to have to pay rent, buy food, and other essentials to get by; there's a good chance that you will fall in love, have a wedding, and nine months later you have a kid, this forcing you to put your career on hold, effectively resetting your progress on the career pay ladder to the bottom. That's if you're still able to have kids by this point," he said sadly, giving her a sober look.

"What do you mean 'still able to have kids?'" her voice higher, a mix of anger and genuine concern.

"I meant no offense," he said, holding up his hands in a surrender gesture, "But one powerful dark curse to the stomach, maybe two, will effectively kill your womb, and end your ability to have children due to irreversible curse damage," he responded, watching 'Tonks' rub her stomach in response before continuing, "I know this because one of my mother's friends, who happened to be a auror during the last war, got hit with a dark cutting curse, losing her unborn child and the ability to have another child in the future," he said soberly, pausing bit, waiting for any response. None were forthcoming, he noted, before deciding to continue on.

"The equipment the ministry provides it aurors is basic at the best of times, and is primarily designed to be worn by male wizards anyways, hence the low protection for such areas as the womb, since men obviously don't have them. Therefore most female law enforcement officers often get desk jobs or appointed to support roles, which pays even less, about half what a frontline auror earns," taking a breath, seeing he still had her attention.

"Even then, most of the gear provided is just standard enchanted leather, and meant to withstand standard spells the average magical would use, rather than the ones dark wizards would cast. Simply put, against an opponent who has even basic knowledge of the dark arts, your armor would act like butter to a hot knife, totally useless to you, ill-suited for a female body, and after one good spell you're in the grave," he ended his lecture, at the moment very grateful for his father's journal and his insight on the dangers for aurors, whilst waiting for Tonks to say something.

"Ok, so how do you come into this", she said looking across the table with interest and leaning forward, looking into his eyes. In return he gave her a slight smile, leaning close as well, not breaking eye contact in their staring contest and finding that he loved the warm brown colour of her eyes...

He responded quickly and succinctly, "I have access to the galleons you need. I can easily afford to provide you with custom-made dragon hide armour, far superior to the ministry provided gear and any other items you need," raising his hand at the end, clearly showing her his heir ring to back up the point, before giving her a chance to examine it closer by giving her his hand.

Taking his offered hand to get a closer look at the ring, she checked it out, before replying, "I see, so what is the deal exactly then?"

"You become my personal trainer in DADA and duelling for the next two years. I can either pay you weekly for the additional hours at an agreed upon rate, and you can save this money up for when you leave Hogwarts and then use it to buy any gear you desire. Or, I can buy this gear for you at the end of the two years, to prevent you from spending the gold you were meant to be saving," he replied, 'he personally thought it was a good deal,' "Plus it's not taxed that way."

"Interesting" Tonks replied, and once again they lapsed into silence, before asking "Do you mind if I think this over and give my answer later, you gave me lot to think about?"

"That's fine, but I'd like to know by next week at the latest, so that gives you until next weekend to think it over," he said, before rising up from his seat to walk over to the door to get on with his evening.

"Wait, I know you're a Potter, I recognise the crest, but what's your first name?" She asked, moving towards the door to follow, this resulted in her tripping over her own robes.

Moving over to help her up, he took a hand, and helped her back to her feet, before placing a light kiss to back of her hand, before saying "Harry James Potter, Heir to the Most Ancient and Noble House of Potter," followed up by a warm smile. "And you know you can find out a lot and confirm everything I've said tonight about aurors in the library, just by asking Madam Pince for the ministry career advice articles," he advised.

Midnight Gold

A week had passed since their first meeting, yet he knew he had gotten Tonks to agree the moment he gave her a kiss on the hand; it was just a matter of time. After all, money and charm go a long way in the world.

Tonks had taken the deal in the end, but had chosen to take the gold now, rather than later. He could easily see that backfiring in a couple years' time if she decided to join the aurors, but that was her choice, not his. Of course, in a couple years he could offer something similar and gain additional favour. He could see many advantages to having indebted friends in magical law enforcement. The information potential alone would be worth it many times over.

As fair compensation, they had agreed upon 70 galleons a month for eight hours a week. Now he had a teacher he could actually understand and duel with, he also felt better after the first duel being able to vent his unspent energy. It was made even better when he had taken Tonks down by surprising her with his second year spell knowledge. The value of surprise was once again confirmed to be a great equalizer, even over an opponent with greater skill, power, and experience. A valuable lesson to be sure.

He had also solved his potion evaluation problem by attaching them to a Gringotts Bank owl, which had just delivered his monthly bank statement. He gave instructions to Bloodmoon that he wanted a potion master to test his own brews, and to give him feedback and advice should any problems be detected. He trusted that his account manager would take a reasonable fee for finding a suitable potion master. So everything was going well on that front as well.

Now all he could do was wait and see what happened.

Midnight Gold

Christmas was just a couple weeks away and a lot of the students were excited about returning home to see their families. Harry himself was just happy to be away from his; he took great comfort in the knowledge that he would never have to spend another Christmas with them again.

But now he was faced with the problem of having to select and send Christmas presents to his friends. He also had to decide who he was giving gifts to in the first place. He personally was going for more simple items, this year at least, that way it didn't matter whether they got him one or not.

He gave them all a mixture of candies. To Padma he gave some chocolate frogs since he knew she was addicted to them as much as he was. He also gave them all a generous gift card to one of the magical bookstores in the alley.

However, he did include a book on mediation exercises since it would certainly help them later in learning the mind arts. He also included a cryptic message explaining the purpose of the book, seeing if they would understand its importance, as a test.

He was planning to give them all copies of his family's 'Discovering the Mind' or some book with a similar purpose, at the end of the school year, so they could learn over the summer.

After all, if he ever wanted to truly be able to trust them and share some more of his secrets, they would have to be able to keep them safe. Otherwise he doubted he would ever be able to fully 'open' up to them.

For the teachers he had simply gone with a bottle of good quality wine, since everyone likes a good bottle of wine he had been told, so why not get the teachers 'merry' with a bit of vino.

He had planned to send a bottle to everyone. Sadly, that included the Headmaster and Snape, since he didn't want to raise attention by leaving them out.

He was tempted to just send socks instead to the headmaster, after all, don't all old people love warm clothing? In the end he dismissed it as a silly idea, and just went with the wine as it was easier.

He kept the one which was originally meant for Binns to himself, because he bought that by mistake. And frankly he wanted to try some for himself; the ghost wouldn't miss it, he couldn't even drink it.

So now he was walking the corridors, heading to the hospital wing; he needed some answers and he figured that that was the best place to find them.

Entering the room, he saw that all the hospital beds were empty with no sign of the medi-witch, so he made his way over to her office.

After greeting Poppy he explained his problem, about being restless with energy and having sleeping problems because of it.

Poppy did some complex wand movements before eyeing him carefully, then looking at his hand with the Potter ring on it, before sighing.

"Mr Potter, your restlessness is in part due to your house ring," indicating to his hand before continuing on in explanation "your house ring ties you magically to your family's ancestral home. These old homes were intentionally built on ley lines, and would power your house wards in times of crisis or siege, similar to the ones here at Hogwarts" gesturing to the walls around them.

"These lines would naturally provide more power for wards, effectively turning a manor into a small fortress, for a short period of time at least. As well as providing the owners of the wards with an increase in magical prowess for a short time, as long as they were inside the wards' area of effect" she said factually while looking him over before her features turned to a decidedly sad expression.

"These wards would be controlled by the magically acknowledged head of the family, while the heir" gesturing to his ring "would slowly be integrated into the wards' control scheme over several decades, before, in time, becoming the head of the family themselves. Due to you having no living head of the family to control this flow of magical energy, the excess energies are flowing into you, effectively recharging you faster than you normally would, hence why you're restless and don't need as much sleep; it also explains how you were able to kill the troll" she said informally.

"What do you mean?" Harry replied with interest, this being a completely unknown topic to him.

"These old rings allow for a temporary boost in power while the bearer is in stressful or life threatening situations, overriding the safety features and effectively giving a short boost of magical power, allowing you to use additional magical energy for a short period of time. However, if sustained for long periods, this can actually damage one's magical core, making it unstable, resulting in death after your core explodes, hence the reason for the safety features in the ring" she answered.

"Oh" he replied, it was a lot of information to take in after all, before asking "are there any long-term dangers involved in this, gesturing to his ring, while silently thinking about the Peverell ring hanging round his neck. A family that magically he was already the head of.

"No, eventually your body will adapt, due to your young age and the fact that your core is still growing. Eventually this will allow you to return to normal sleeping levels; it probably will actually feed your core's growth beyond the norm, giving you a minor gain in permanent power over your lifetime." She said in a thinking tone, before her voice became heavy and serious.

"I must stress that you absolutely should not intentionally put yourself in dangerous situations thinking it will make you more powerful. It will most likely kill you if you're channelling such power before your body is capable of handling it" she said in a lecturing voice. "I can't tell you how it works beyond that though, you'd have to talk to a specialist if you want to know more. All I can tell you are the medical causes and effects" she said pointedly.

"However, I'm going to ask you to see me once a week for the remainder of the school year so that we can monitor your core for any early warning signs" the nurse said in a tone which made it clear that it wasn't a request, more like an order.

"Fine" he replied in a bored tone, before replying, there was no point arguing over it, she would just get his head of house involved, "any idea how much permanent additional growth this will cause?"

She looked him over carefully before answering "I would guess somewhere around 1-3% additional growth, as long you don't do anything overly stupid" she replied, "however, there has never been a study on this, since there are so few subjects to monitor with these circumstances" she said in a scholarly tone.

"What do you mean?" he said instinctively.

"Mr Potter, think about everything I said, this only happens when no blood family members are left alive. How many other individuals can you think of are in the same situation as you? You're the first underage heir of an old family, in a century with these circumstances. The Death Eaters didn't leave orphans by choice, they wiped out whole families, including their children" she said in an angry tone, "plus there are all the additional factors to consider."

Deciding to leave quickly, rather than risk a repeat of what had happened to Percy, he decided to leave her to her work, "Thank you madam, I'll see you next week" he replied in a grateful tone, rather than risking angering her further, before fleeing the office and hospital wing altogether.

Upon leaving the hospital wing he found a quiet, secluded spot and closely examined the ring hanging around his neck, wondering what was going to happen with the influence of two rings working upon him.

At least the nurse would be monitoring it. If it started getting serious, he would tell her about the Peverell ring rather than risk his health and development. Otherwise he would just have to be careful in his day-to-day life. So if the Peverell ring was affecting him the same way, he was looking at maybe an average 4% growth of his magical core in total, maybe 6% max.

Now he had to research ley lines to have some idea of what the nurse was talking about, plus he wanted to know himself. He was a raven after all, and knowledge was power. Almost literally in this case now that he had two distinct links with several ley lines or more.

Library

It had taken him several hours to find the necessary books, even with the librarian helping him to find some of the relevant reference books.

The books didn't go into much detail, but provided a rather simple explanation.

Ley lines are the natural pathways of the planet's magical energy, like a river or a stream flowing across the land, often resulting in magical life growing around these lines where natural magic is at its strongest. Stronger and fewer still are those places on the Earth where more than one ley line intersect, forming a focal point and more powerful source of combined magic to tap.

These lines and there stronger intersection points are often used for long-lasting, large-scale warding, or for magical settlements due to the natural magics availability to empower wards and support the growth and development of diverse magical life. An intersection of three or more ley lines are primarily used for powering a country's ward schemes, or key places. Key examples of these powerful and rare intersection points are the Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts.

Historically, powerful magical families and Warlords used these intersection points to build their own magical strongholds. Few accessible locations intersecting more than one ley line are privately owned today. Most of these spots are now owned by national governments since the original old families who held them have entirely passed on to the next great adventure.

The wizard or witch channelling such energies from the wardstones that are keyed to such ley lines, may use them to increase their own magical energies for short-erm gain, often doubling or tripling their prowess. However, when used for extended periods of time, the magical core can often destabilize violently. The more power that is channelled, the faster this effect can happen.

It has been noted though that it often takes several years for a wizard or witch to integrate into a wardstone matrix tapping a single ley line or an intersection point, before he or she can use this ability fully.

Closing the book, it had answered his question; it also meant that most of the remaining old families, such as his own, had access to these ley lines and perhaps the rarer intersection points. Didn't matter much now, but it was good to know for the future.

It also meant that the Headmaster was far more powerful than most people believed if the old man could tap into the intersected ley lines found here in an emergency. It explained why Lord Voldemort never marched on Hogwarts, since the Headmaster's power could very well double or triple for a short period of a duel, giving him an unmistakable advantage.

It made him wonder just how much damage the headmaster could do if he wanted to; combined with his knowledge could he ever be beaten in his stronghold? Could he level dozens of wizards with a single spell? It really was mind blowing when he thought about it. He was grateful that he had no plans to ever fight the man directly; it also confirmed in his mind that if he ever had to fight the headmaster, it would have to be by hitting the man in the back or solely on the political battlefield.

However, his attention was drawn away from these thoughts as a shadow fell upon him, looking up he saw that it was Daphne. He had to admit that he liked the cold blonde, but he wouldn't say so to her.

"Hi Daphne," he said looking up.

"Harry" came the one word response, before sitting down quickly and looking over his choice in books. "Interesting choice in texts."

"Yes, they are" gesturing to the books arrayed in front of him. He made no point in hiding them, as it would only draw her attention to the fact that he had, and she would undoubtedly look up what he had just finished reading anyway. Plus he had nothing to hide. Looking across the table, he spoke "Want me to check your charm's essay?"

She replied straight away, this was their routine after all, "Same deal as before, you check my charms essay, I check your herbology one?"

"Of course," he replied and went about swapping assignments, before going about checking the essay. Looking up with one eye he could clearly see that Daphne was watching him, obviously having something she wanted to ask, "What's on your mind?"

"I was just wondering what you have been up to the last couple of days" she asked in a curious tone.

He decided to go with the truth, as he doubted his extra training would stay secret for long. "I am practising DADA in the evening, a couple hours a week. After the whole troll in the bathroom deal, and Penny in the hospital wing, I decided to get in some extra practical training, mainly target practise and dodging spells." He answered.

"Understandable, I would too after having to deal with an adult mountain troll. My father said there is still no official report about the troll; it seems the headmaster has managed to keep it out of ministry involvement" she replied.

"I expected as much since it wasn't in the paper" Harry responded, in a cold tone. It annoyed him that such an event could be overlooked by the papers.

Several minutes passed in comfortable silence, while they went about the task of checking the other person's essay.

"Harry, have you ever wondered why Penny is being so helpful towards you, besides being assigned to mentor you?" She asked.

"Yea a bit, but I just guessed that it was due to her being assigned to me, as well maybe Penny coming to see me as a little brother of sorts, but after the troll incident she may believe she owes me some kind of debt for saving her," he answered, in a puzzled tone. It really did puzzle him, he expected Daphne had a theory or something, since he doubted she would bring this up as a subject for small talk.

"You're correct to a point, what do you know of wizard debts?" Daphne asked, putting her quill down and watching him, waiting for him to respond.

"Not as much as I would like. I know a bit about the financial side, but I haven't really had a chance to look into it, after all I've only known about magic since this summer" he admitted to her.

She just nodded accepting this answer, before asking in a questioning tone, "What do you know about life debts?"

End of chapter