Chapter 11: Teacher and Student

"YOU SOLVED ONE OF THE-?!"

"Oi, keep it down!" Harry hissed, putting a finger to his lips. He pulled Hermione back down into her seat in the common room as several other Gryffindors stared over at her in bewilderment. "Yes, I helped to solve one. But try not to announce it; we're not supposed to mess about with the Mysteries, are we?"

"Why didn't you bring us with you?" she whispered angrily. "You know we've been looking into them ever since we've heard about them!"

"There wasn't time," he said, sighing. He'd known she would react like this; Hermione hated not being first, even if it wasn't schoolwork. "I didn't know where he was going, and you two had already gone down to dinner."

"Those Mysteries have been around for centuries, and the two of you just had to move a few mirrors to solve one," muttered Ron, shaking his head. "Mental."

"Dante used that same thing he used to reveal those other things in the trophy room and armour gallery; some kind of large eyeball. I don't think he would have found the mirrors without that."

"And that's another thing," Hermione cut in, frowning. "How did he find it in the first place? The way you described, he went straight to the room; did you get a good look at the parchment he was using?"

"No." He had thought of this particular point on the way back, and briefly considered using the Invisibility Cloak to sneak a look at it, but couldn't see how he was supposed to get it from Dante's coat and gave up on the idea. "Hey; you think one of the teachers gave it to him?"

"Yeah, you're right!" Ron said, grinning. "McGonagall showed him where the trophy room was; I'll bet she gave him a list of all the Mysteries in the castle! All the staff probably know where they are, so they can keep us away from them."

"But then why didn't she go with?" asked Hermione, frowning. "She was down at the feast with us."

Harry mulled this over, frowning. "You don't think…maybe it's like the end of our first year? Maybe they want us to figure things out for ourselves."

"Mental," Ron repeated, stretching his arms. "You'd think after four years they could give us a few hints." He settled back into the chair. "Well, next time we're going with you. Even if we're in the middle of lunch or dinner, you let us know and we'll drop it."

"I didn't think anything was important enough to drag you away from dinner," Hermione muttered, the corners of her mouth twitching.

"Ho ho," grumbled Ron.

Dante stepped away from the statue. "Well, fifty-fifty's better than a full 'no'." He looked at the phial of blood in his hand; one of the ones from Grimmauld Place. "Still, how's she expect me to know it was human blood? Dunno what the hell I'm supposed to do with all of it now…" He pocketed it for the time being. At least I didn't make a wasted trip here! Some cool new stuff for the whip, and I get to look forward to a few new tricks for the old weapons eventually. …Not that I'm exactly thrilled about the idea of demons running around a school, but everything ends up worst-case with us eventually. Good to be prepared.

"That's a new statue."

Dante whirled around, reaching a hand into his coat, but froze once he saw his mystery guest. Sheesh…just a kid. But how did she get here without me noticing? "…You're up late," he said, removing his hand from his coat and folding his arms. What was her name again?

The girl with dirty-blonde hair nodded. "Exploring helps to clear my head. But I usually don't encounter anyone else when I come here."

"Yeah, well…I had a few things of my own to clear up." He looked at her, racking his brains to try- Luna! That was her name. "Not many people can sneak up on me; I'm impressed, Luna."

"People overlook what they don't expect. And you weren't expecting me to be here."

Sheesh, if she ever got into a "let's-see-who-can-act-the-most-detached" contest with Trish, that would be some serious competition. Unless they decided to ignore the competition and kick him in the head, just because they felt bored. Thinking of this, his eyes glanced down at her feet. Her bare feet. "It's pretty cold at night; you sure you don't wanna wear shoes?"

Luna seemed to ignore him completely, staring past him to look at the Watcher of Time. "I've never seen anything like this before. It's very beautiful."

Whatever; if she didn't want to talk about it, he wasn't going to press the issue. He turned to glance at it as well. "It's called the Watcher of Time. It represents an all-knowing being that records all of space and time." He briefly toyed with telling her the full story, but felt that if she was going to be mysterious, he could be too. "They say she also teaches the ways of war, but only to the worthy."

"Like you?"

He smirked; he could see that she'd left the question ambiguous on purpose, and he wasn't going to take the bait. "You could say that." The white haired man yawned. "Well, it's getting late. I'll bring you back up to your common room so you don't get any detentions."

She complied, but something kept bugging him as they went up the stairs in the direction of the Ravenclaw common room. It wasn't the quiet, or the unconcerned air about her. Still, if he didn't know any better, he thought he'd seen a spark of recognition during their conversation.

Monday was uneventful (aside from the once-more mounting homework, but Harry was beginning to become resigned to it by now), and so was Tuesday morning, but Transfiguration on Tuesday was a lesson inspected by the "High Inquisitor".

And it was glorious. If Dumbledore wasn't avoiding him, Harry might have asked to borrow the Pensieve.

Still, even with the thought of Umbridge's latest shortcoming fresh in his mind, he was beginning to get worried about the letter he'd sent to Sirius. He had tried several times to think about how it would look to an outsider, and did his best to make their view of his message vague, but if he'd missed something big-

"Oi, Harry!"

He started; Ron was waving his hand right in front of Harry's face. "Sorry. Just thinking about the inspection."

Ron's worried expression turned dreamy. "Yeah, that was brilliant, wasn't it? You'd think she'd have known better than to jump right to McGonagall after Trelawney."

"She probably wants to get anything she can on Professor McGonagall because she's so close to Dumbledore," said Hermione knowledgeably. "She'll have a hard time trying to go for a 'poor teaching' angle, though; I don't think there's a witch or wizard alive who knows as much about Transfiguration, apart from Dumbledore."

"Good," Harry said, smirking. "I can't wait to see the look on her face when the only one sacked by the end of the year is Umbridge."

"Speaking of the look on Umbridge's face," said Ron, "did you notice? She was in a right little temper before the class even started. Wonder what that was all about?"

Harry and Hermione shrugged. While the thought of things that might irritate their Defence Against the Dark Arts professor was worthwhile, Harry's mind was already back to worrying about Sirius.

They had another inspected lesson in Care of Magical Creatures, and for the majority of the lesson, Harry was quite content with ignoring Umbridge in favour of completing the task set to them; collecting knarl quills without being injured by the animals that they came from. He did catch a few things; Grubbly-Plank was planning on taking them through porlocks and bowtruckles if Hagrid was not back soon, and she had no idea where Hagrid was either. Unfortunately, one of Umbridge's comments that he overheard wrenched his attention away from the lesson completely.

"Now, there have been injuries in this class, I hear."

Harry knew what was coming, and he knew, as Hagrid's friend, he couldn't stomach it silently. He had to do something! And so, without thinking…

"ProfessordoBowtrucklesliveinnonwandtrees?" he blurted out.

Both Umbridge and Professor Grubbly-Plank turned to look at him. "Didn't catch that, Potter," Professor Grubbly-Plank said, with an interested expression.

He swallowed, quickly reorganizing his thoughts. "I was wondering, Professor; are Bowtruckles that live in wand trees different from others?"

She considered his question thoughtfully. "Well, most of them seem to prefer wand trees; perhaps. They won't dwell in mundane trees, of course, but a difference between them…" She tapped her chin, thinking for a moment. "I can't say I've ever considered it. Thinking of making an extracurricular study, Mr. Potter?"

Harry nodded. "It's very fascinating," he lied. While he was quite keen on avoiding any additional homework when he was very near drowning in it already, Harry knew that if he allowed Umbridge's line of questioning to continue, he would lose his temper as well as his chance to train the following day. If he could distract Grubbly-Plank now, it was worth the consequences.

As the lesson ended, however, he was starting to doubt that point. He had succeeded in capturing the professor's attention (and in a way Umbridge couldn't punish him for, either), and she had enthusiastically discussed his sudden project idea with him for the rest of the lesson. While they wouldn't be covering bowtruckles for a few weeks yet, he was to study them until the lessons changed over to that subject, and have the answer ready when they started on bowtruckles.

And when they finally returned to Gryffindor Tower, he thought he might have made a terrible mistake when he was once more confronted with the homework he had been dreading. Just once, an easy assignment would be appreciated, he thought.

Wednesday was interesting in several ways. The first was that they discovered what had been bothering Umbridge; apparently, she was receiving a small shock every time she touched the handle of her classroom door. This would not have been so unusual in most circumstances, but curiously, it was only happening to her. The second interesting thing was that somehow, against all odds, he scraped another "Poor" in Potions. While this would hardly be worth celebrating normally, a Poor for Harry was essentially an Acceptable for anyone else, and both he and Snape knew it; the letter "P" looked as if it had been scratched with a quill under intense pressure.

The last interesting way was, of course, more training with Dante. …Though the trip down the entrance of the antechamber was no more pleasant than it had been the first time.

"So, last time we got to see how you fight with no warning. Call it a first day pop quiz."

"Did I pass?" Harry muttered before he could stop himself.

"Well…you did okay, but there's room for improvement. That was the easy part. Now the hard work starts." He grinned at Harry's shocked look. "What, you thought it was always gonna be that simple?"

"'Simple'?! You almost took my head off!"

He rolled his eyes. "That was not even close to me trying. I wasn't about to go all out on the first day of training."

Harry gaped at him. All the frantic, desperate defenses on his part…and the man hadn't even put in any effort?! "…But I gave it all I had…I could barely hold a quill the rest of the day…"

"Don't look so down, kid. We'll get you toughened up before long. Sure, it'll be rough to start with. But there's always a price to pay, and a little exhaustion and muscle aches are pretty small prices overall. Especially considering the badass we're gonna turn you into."

Harry looked at the man. He was wearing a small smile; an encouraging one. He still felt nervous, and definitely tired, but he was determined to see this through. "Okay. What am I fighting with today?"

The man chuckled. "Not quite so fast. We're not gonna spar again until next week. But I wanna see if you remember what we've learned; what was lesson one?"

"…Be aware of everything?" It was a little difficult to remember, given the fight for his life he'd gone through (or so he'd thought at the time).

"Are you askin' me or telling me?"

"Telling. Be aware of everything," said Harry, his voice firmer.

Dante nodded. "Good. Now, while we were sparring, did you learn anything else?"

Harry thought for a moment. The answer seemed simple, but…was it the correct one? "You're too fast for me," he grumbled, only half-serious.

The professor beamed. "Yep! And that's what we're gonna work on today. You've gotta see faster, move faster, and think faster if you want to stand a chance in a real fight; I'm sure you know how crazy a fight can get."

He gave a nod in response, but said nothing. He was surprised his first impulse had been correct, to be honest, and was slightly annoyed at the implication that he didn't stand a chance in a "real" fight already.

"Since this isn't a sudden deadly struggle, you've got time to warm up. Do some stretches and let me know when you're ready, so we can start a few simple exercises."

Harry stared at him blankly. "…Stretches? I haven't done those since primary school, and I don't remember half of them."

Dante sighed, shaking his head. "What do they teach you guys at this school?"

"Witchcraft and wizardry. It's in the name."

He gave a snort, but immediately brought his expression to one of calm. "Well, here. Let's go through these one at a time…"

It was an oddly nostalgic feeling as they went through stretches; Harry thought of the phys ed classes that he and Dudley had gone through when they were younger. They had been the only times Harry had ever dared to excel over his cousin, knowing that he would be too tired and angry at the teacher afterward to care about who had run faster or jumped higher. Even then, he hadn't particularly enjoyed them at the time; looking back, though, they might have helped him to be good at running away from Dudley and his gang. Perhaps they'd even prepared him for Quidditch, somehow?

The exercises themselves were actually far simpler than he'd expected. Granted, that didn't make them any more enjoyable to do while in the dank antechamber of the Chamber of Secrets; doing push-ups was less than pleasant on stone that was both damp and cold. Worse, Harry hated that their final exercise was doing lunges. He knew that they wouldn't bother him right away, but that they would make his muscles begin to ache terribly come evening time.

"Okay, that should about do it. Now that you're warmed up, we're gonna start today's training. We'll work on making you ready to react to anything while still keeping focus on where it needs to be. So I'm gonna throw lightning bats at you."

Harry blinked. "…Sorry?"

"Don't worry, they'll be low-powered," reassured the white-haired man. "I'm not gonna risk killing you. But they'll still sting like hell if they connect, so you'll definitely want to avoid them. While you're doing that, I want you to hit me with that water spell you and your friends were using in class Friday. I'll keep track of who scores hits, and we'll see who wins." With that, he pulled something from behind his back into his hands, seemingly from nowhere.

Harry stared at the strange object. "Is that a…guitar?"

"An electric guitar," Dante added helpfully. "Step back a couple feet, and we'll get started." Harry obeyed, staring at the man once he'd stopped. "Ready…set…go!" Several long, thin arcs of electricity ignited across the neck of the guitar, and the professor made a strumming motion.

Two small forms launched from the guitar; Harry could just see that they were bats surrounded by bright purple lightning before he jumped to the side, drawing his wand. "Aguamenti!" he shouted, pointing at Dante. A jet of water burst from the tip of his wand, and hit the white-haired man's hand. There was a small chuckle from him, and then he plucked the strings of the guitar a second time. Harry saw another bat form before he gave a gasp of pain; he'd stopped after scoring the hit on his training partner, and one of the bats from before impacted the small of his back with a short squeak. The shock of electricity hurt, but it was no worse than a moderately strong static shock.

"One to one," Dante called to him as he twisted out of the way of the two new bats. "But if you stand still, this is gonna get really one-sided."

Harry thought that was a bit rich, coming from someone who had very clearly planted his feet and was only moving his arms, but he understood the point clearly. He began jogging around the stationary professor, firing another jet of water. His aim was slightly off, and he missed; still, he managed to dodge the bats that swooped at him, and two fizzled out without touching him.

Dante began playing the guitar in a very slow, very low tune; only every few seconds did a note play and summon another electric bat. After ducking under another bat that frizzled into nothingness harmlessly, Harry realized something. These bats have a time limit. He's replacing them just as fast as they disappear, but if I can keep the number of them in mind… He skidded to a stop and changed directions rapidly, causing his small pursuers to fly right past him. He sent another two jets of water at Dante, and both managed to connect, even if the second only grazed him. He tried to slide out of the way of the bats as they closed in on him again; he succeeded in moving past the first two, but the last one caught him in the chest, taking some of the wind out of him. He gritted his teeth and began moving again.

They continued for some time. Harry could tell that the attacks of the bats were changing frequently; every time he figured out their pattern, they would fly at him in a different method, and it would take him several seconds to adapt to them once more. After he managed to score three rapid hits in succession on his opponent, the red-coated man smiled to himself. "You're not too bad; you're pickin' this up even quicker than I thought you would. All right, then. Let's turn up the volume a little bit!" His stance changed, the weight shifting so that he was no longer solidly in place. "I heard Nero play this little number once; time to rock!" He began bouncing on the balls of his feet as he played with more gusto, and the song switched to something slightly more fast-paced.

Harry kept trying to move unpredictably, but it was more difficult now; the little lightning bats were forming more quickly and attacking more fiercely, lasting longer before disappearing. The red-coated man was actually moving out of the way of his spells, and it was taking more effort and concentration to keep his accuracy. Several times he would score a hit, only to take a shock that came from an unexpected angle. He'd lost all track of who was currently in the lead, and felt a twinge of frustration that he seemed to be the only one being punished for taking hits.

Several minutes later, two bats caught him in the midsection at the same time while he had moved to attack and change direction simultaneously; the resulting electricity coursed through him, knocking the wind out of him and making him skid to a halt. Somehow, amazingly, he had not fallen down; though how, he could not have said.

Dante finished his tune, and the last of the bats disappeared. "Well, looks like it's about that time. You did all right, kid. We're not gonna be fighting next time, but bring your wand anyway. Always good to be armed just in case."

Harry shook his arms out, trying to banish the tingling in them. "Hold on, who won? You said you were keeping track."

"I did say that, didn't I? Whoops. Guess I musta lost count about the time you hit me in the face twice." He laughed.

Harry did not. "Glad you can at least laugh; I think my fingertips have gone numb," he snapped, still shaking his arms out. Easy enough for you to lose count when you're not the one getting electrocuted, he thought to himself.

"What's with the sour look?" He moved the guitar behind himself, and then folded his empty arms across each other. By the look on his face, he seemed to know what Harry had left unsaid. "You know, every time you hit me with water, it shorted the juice through me. You think you had it bad; you ever grab the business end of a cattle prod? Picture that, and you've got a good clue how it felt every time you landed a hit." He snorted as he saw Harry's surprised look. "What, you thought I was going to make you go through all that and not take a hit myself?"

There was silence for several moments. "…I'm sorry," said Harry.

Dante sighed, shaking his head. "Well, it's a lesson for you, anyway. No matter how good you are, no matter how quick you are, sooner or later you're gonna have to take a few hits; if you can't, you'll be in big trouble. I'll admit you don't wanna take the hits if you can help it, but if you can't, it's a good idea to limit how much it shakes you up. Some things you can't afford to be hit with ever, but usually those ones have a long windup or take a long time to recharge; still, it's handy to be able to shake off the small stuff."

Harry was quiet for a while. This was all a lot to take in, and he was wondering if he should have been using Shield Charms during their little "game"; his first impulse was yes, and that he'd been foolish for not thinking of them, but clearly his instructor had been trying to make what seemed to be a valid point. "So what you're saying is, sometimes the best defence is…no defence?"

The man scoffed. "The best defense is not being in the way of the other guy's offense. What I'm saying is, with practice, you can let the small stuff graze you and counterattack at the same time; your enemy will never be more wide open than in the middle of an attack."

Harry took a moment to consider this. Now that he thought about it, he seemed to remember that most of his successful spell attempts had been done while Dante was already occupied with an attack of his own; in addition, it seemed he had always been in the middle of casting or just finished when he was shocked by the bats. Actually…during his first year, hadn't he landed the finishing attack on Quirrell while the man had been just about to kill him?

"Hell, if you get good at that, I'll teach you how to block and attack at the same time. It's not easy, but you would not BELIEVE how useful it is." He drew the whip that had conjured water during their last training session. "Anyway, it's about that time."

When Harry returned to Gryffindor Tower that night, both exhausted and thoughtful, he found Ron and Hermione waiting for him. "Hey. What are you two still doing up?"

They exchanged a look. "How's training going?" Hermione asked him.

Harry frowned. "Unusual, but it's pretty cool. Why?"

Ron nodded, almost to himself. "We've been talking a little bit and…well, since Umbridge isn't any good as a professor…"

"We…sort of had an idea we wanted to ask you about…" Hermione began, but faltered slightly under Ron's look of disapproval. "Well, okay, I had the idea, but it concerns all of us."

Harry looked between them, curious. "…What, do you want training too?" He'd meant it as a joke, but when they didn't answer, he smiled. "Well, you can always ask, but someone might notice if we all crowd into Myrtle's bathroom."

"That's not exactly what we had in mind," Hermione said. She bit her lip nervously. "But…well, some hands-on practice would certainly help us to learn how to defend ourselves."

"And pass our O.W.L.s," Ron provided, looking pointedly at her.

She fidgeted slightly. "…Well, okay, that as well. What do you think, Harry?"

He shrugged. "I think it's a great idea. But isn't Dante-"

"Actually," Ron cut in, "we thought we should probably have someone else teach us. Dante's good, no mistaking," he added hurriedly at a look from Harry, "but he doesn't seem to know any spells. Or at least, none that we can use."

"And what's more, Umbridge hates him," added Hermione. "I can't see why she hasn't inspected his class yet, honestly. Clearly there's something off about the things that he does, and he's the only professor that's an American; he never wears robes and he's got all those weapons that-"

"Hermione."

She jumped slightly at Ron's voice. "Right! Sorry. But Dante's already busy with classes. We were thinking of someone who knew a lot of spells with lots of practical experience using them."

Harry frowned. "…McGonagall, then?"

"Well…she would be very good, but we'd have a similar problem with any of the teachers as we'd have with Dante, really."

"But…if we can't get a teacher, who's going to teach us?"

Hermione shot a nervous look at Ron before looking at Harry with the air of someone choosing their words very delicately. "Well…actually…"

CHAPTER END

My, how time flies...this one's late for Tanabata, much to my disappointment. Still, it's here; hope it's okay!

Next chapter we're really going to start getting the ball rolling...