Chapter 22: Declaration of Intent
Several days later Hermione stood panting in the middle of a field a half mile away from Hogwarts. A forty five minute work out left the girl utterly exhausted. Like Harry had said, he subscribed to the idea that you have to train the body in order to train the mind, and Hermione needed a lot of work to catch the former up with the latter.
"I can see we're going to have a lot of work to do…" the pre-teen grimaced, pacing in front of his student.
"I'm not that bad…" she winced, clutching a stitch in her side.
Rolling his eyes, "While you might not be that bad off, the high calorie diet the average wizard eats isn't going to help, not to mention that while your mind might be strong, the rest of you needs some serious work. Heck the way you were trying to hit me was laughable! The way you were clenching your fist, one hit and you would have broken your thumb!"
The brunette gritted her teeth, knowing that while the advice was sound, it didn't change the way that the facts were a bitter pill to swallow.
"Is all this really necessary?" the girl grimaced as she started the cool-down exercises that her sensei had shown her earlier.
"Allow me to tell you a story. I read this on one of the history books in the Library. There once was a pair of brothers who were masters of the physical arts. They employed themselves as bodyguards and assassins of the highest order. One day they encountered a magus who had mastered a curse that could shatter bones. The old man spent decades carving every nuance of the spell into his mind until he could recite it in any situation. The brothers proved to be better when they struck the mage first and broke his bones. All of the man's efforts were wasted in a single hit. Now what is the moral of this story?" Sin asked.
Hermione mulled over the story for a moment before she came to a conclusion: "All the knowledge in the world won't do you any good if someone is better than you."
"Right, having both brains and ability are better than having one or the other by themselves…" the being in Harry's body nodded
Sin crouched down and slipped (an edited) copy of 'A Guide to Basic Alchemy', into her pack as they made their way back to the school. Actually, Harry walked, Hermione hobbled.
It was a short while later that the duo walked out of history of magic, tousle haired and sleepy eyed. Even Hermione wasn't able to keep her mind on the class after the lecture about the chamber of secrets.
"So, the heir of Slythein, he…" Harry thought
"Or she." Hermione corrected.
"Or she, is the only one that can control whatever is in the chamber? Is there some way of knowing who the heir is? Maybe a distinguishing birthmark, like a forked tongue or something?" the homunculi questioned.
"Not that I know of. The only trait that was prevalent in the Slythein line was Parstletongue, the ability to talk to snakes…"
"Damn. Ok, next question, how do we find out who the heir is?"
"I don't know. The only way to know would be to have one big genealogy guide to the students and faculty. While most of the purebloods like to brag about how old their lines are, I doubt any of them would be willing to own up to being the heir at this point."
"You got that right. Any student who owns up to being a decedent of Salzar would get lynched, heir or not."
"What we need is a way of going around the houses undetected…"
"The invisibility cloak?"
"No. The individual dorms have wards that prevent entry except for guests and the students that belong to that particular house."
"How do you know that?"
"I read it in Hogwarts, a history." She said primly.
Several minutes passed.
"I have one idea, but a million and one things could go wrong." Harry's apprentice uttered.
"I'm listening." Her sensei replied.
"Have you ever heard of Polyjuice potion?"
It was several hours later that afternoon when the students and faculty were gathered at the Quidditch stadium
"And welcome to another match of the century between the millennium old rivals, Gryffindor and Slytherin. I'm Lee Jordan and I will be your color commentator for today." The Gryffindor announced.
"Not to colorful I hope!" Professor McGonagall said dryly.
"No ma'am! I swear on dear old Granny Jordan's grave!"
"The one I spoke with yesterday about curbing that tongue of yours?"
"Erk! I mean, yes'm! Oh look! The players are taking off. Spinnet passes to Johnson! Look at those Bludgers fly! Fred (or is it George) really nailed that one. I think I saw a few of Pucey's teeth get knocked out of his head! Dunbar's really going to have to hit the gas if she wants to catch that snitch!"
The match went back and forth for forty five long minutes, before disaster struck.
CRACK!
"GAH!"
Harry leaped back as one of the Bludgers suddenly veered off course and smashed into the stands.
"What the hell!" the last Potter sputtered as he back stepped.
WHA-BOOM!
Sin cursed in all the languages he could think of. The Bludger plowed through the underside of the stands, tearing a gaping hole in the woodwork.
"Everyone get off the stands! This thing's gonna tear it apart!" Harry bellowed as he felt the supports underneath him shudder.
Whipping out his wand, the boy cast a quick shield and yelped as the magical projectile pounded into it like a cannon ball.
Knowing that he couldn't risk exposing his telekinesis, the boy who lived leaped over the side.
"What are you doing?" Harry screeched from inside his head.
"Improvising!" the homunculus answered.
WHOOSH!
Sin twisted in mid air, barely managed to avoid having his ribs powdered.
He latched onto a support column and clung to the underside of the stands.
CRASH!
BANG!
POW!
The Bludger weaved in between the struts, smashing the wood to kindling.
"Can you move a little faster please?" Sin's host cackled.
"Shut up and I will!" Father's newest son uttered.
Meanwhile, below the stands...
Hermione back a curse as she watched her sensei leap back and forth between the beams as the Bludger came within inched of knocking him silly.
Grimacing, The brunette pulled a piece of chalk out of her pocket and set to work.
"Let's see...start with two large circles, one inside the other, put this rune here, another there, don't forget these two, Another few at the bottom, connect the sagging individual support pillars with lines branching outward ..." she thought, scrambling to complete her first transmutation circle.
"Accio splintered wood!" she barked, flicking her wand and banishing the various size chunks of matter into the central array.
Praying that she got it right, she clasped her hands, meditated on focusing her chi, and poured the energy into the circle.
Harry watched in surprise as the wood under his feet sparked and knitted back together.
Sparing a glance down below. Sin's eyes widened in surprise as he spied Hermione crouched beside a basic transmutation circle.
"She's coming along nicely. I just gave her that text this morning and she's already figured out enough chi manipulation to pull off a basic transmutation." The homunculus marveled.
His moment of inattention cost him.
WHAM!
CRACK!
Pain lanced through the boy's body as the bludger slammed into his leg, shattering it and knocking the pre-teen off the scaffolding, all the while mentally swearing to come back and haunt whoever persuaded that magical death tool to attack him.
"This is going to hurt…" Harry realized as the ground closed in on them.
WHAM!
Hermione leaped back and stared at the unmoving form of her mentor for fifteen long seconds.
"Harry? HARRY!" she screamed hysterically.
"Move aside now!" madam Pomfrey ground out as Professor McGonagall pulled the frantic girl away.
"His neck's not broken, praise Merlin for small miracles…" the nurse uttered weakly as she levitated the broken body.
"Miracles my finely toned buttocks…" Sin slurred weakly, mentally cursing having to hold back his telekinesis and healing factor.
"Ah! A battle field wound! Allow me to help!" Lockheart butted in.
"Get that Chee lun seen Ba po away from us!" Harry screeched.
"On that we agree!" Sin muttered as he wiggled weakly in Pomfrey's grasp.
"Maybe you should leave that for the nurse to fix?" Al chimed in weakly.
"Nonsense! I've done this a million times!" the DADA professor smiled toothily.
Harry's stomach clenched as the defense professor's spell slammed into his lower half.
As the bones in Sin's legs vanished, leaving a limp pair of fleshy sheaths, he realized his both his hosts instincts and his own were right on the money.
Sin cursed the inventor of Skele-grow as the painful pins and needles feeling in his legs reached a fevered pitch, preventing any chance of sleep.
Oh course, the conversation he had with Hermione a few hours ago was still on his mind.
Several hours earlier…
"I'm going to kill him! I am going to murder Lockheart for this!" Sin ranted, gesturing to his limp legs.
"You aren't really going to kill him, are you? You'll get into a lot of trouble for assaulting a professor…" she protested.
"I know what I'll do! I'll turn him into a flea, a harmless little flea! And then, I'll put that flea into a box, and I'll put that box inside of another box, and I'll mail that box to myself! And when it arrives in a few weeks…Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! I'LL SMASH IT WITH A HAMMER!" the Homunculi cackled.
"I didn't know you were a Disney fan." The bushy haired girl said weakly.
"It seemed appropriate." He replied darkly.
What was worse was the note, it stated eight simple words that both chilled him and made his blood boil: "You never saw this coming. Watch your back."
Tuning out Harry's snickering, Sin laid back and thought of how to get the potion recipe for Polyjuice. Moste Potent Potions was in the restricted section for a reason, and while the easy path would have been to mind f*** one of the professors and make them write up a permission notice, there was too much chance that any permission slip could make its way back to Dumbledore, and then the jig would be up.
"So as soon as I get out of here; its time for plan B." The homunculi thought.
Suddenly, a quintuplet of voices could be heard outside the infirmary.
"Quickly now!"
"Grab his feet! He's slipping!
"You mind your end and I'll mind mine!"
"So mind it already!"
"Quit your petty bickering and get him in here!" Sin heard Madam Pomfrey bark.
Pulling the curtains aside slightly, the new homunculus sped none other than Creepy Colin Creevey (as he had come to be known for his near fanatical hero worship of the last Potter) being hauled like a sack of potatoes.
"Another one. This is getting out of hand. First Mrs. Norris and now this. If the board of Governors gets wind of this, we'll all be in hot water…" the pre-teen heard Dumbledore mutter.
"So who's hosting this thing anyway, I heard Professor Flitwick was a champion duelist back in his day." Sin asked a week later.
The student body watched in fascination as Professor Uryū Ishida glided onto the raised platform with Lockheart right behind him.
"Urge to kill…rising!" Sin hissed manically.
"He's not that bad…" Hermione protested weakly.
Many of the students flinched when they felt a massive killing intent roll off the last Potter like a tidal wave. Even the normally thick skulled blond realized that staying in firing range was probably a bad idea.
"Per Dumbledore's request, I have started a dueling club to better instruct the lot of you how to defend yourselves. We'll start off with the basics today. Gilderoy, if you would?"
"Now students, I promise not to ruffle your potions professor too badly!" the blond smiled toothily, prompting the female portion of the audience to sigh longingly.
Lockheart and Ishida faced each other.
The blond wordlessly gestured wildly with his wand as the potions professor jabbed like a swordsman.
"Expelliarmus!" the defense professor roared.
POW!
The spell slammed into Lockheart with the force of a cannonball, sending the man tumbling through the air, pinwheeling wildly.
BANG!
CRACK!
BOOM!
Gilderoy bounced three times across the room before coming to a stop over fifty feet away.
"Owie…" the blond whimpered as Al helped him to his feet.
"Are you all right sir?"
"HA! A little spell like that won't phase the likes of Gilderoy Lockheart!" the blond boasted.
"Now that the…demonstration portion of the period is finished, I'd like you to divide up into pairs and practice the spell." Professor Uryū drawled.
The students spent next several seconds dividing into groups, until the only two that were left were Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter.
"Look who's lined up for a beating…" the platinum blond sneered.
"You're one to talk. Unless you forgot that I ground your face into the dirt the last time we tangled." Harry sneered right back.
"Remember, all you are going to cast is the disarming spell I demonstrated. I trust you can follow those simple directions?" the dark haired professor looked pointedly at the Slythein.
"Of course professor!" Malfoy said innocently.
"Time to take a nap Potter!" Sin smirked.
"Wait! What are you…" Harry protested as an immense lethargy caused him to nod off.
The two took their positions.
"Begin!"
"Serpensortia!" Malfoy barked.
SPLAT!
The moment the snake touched the ground, Sin's telekinetic grasp smashed the magical construct, reducing it to a pile of composite atoms.
"What the bloody…URK!" The malfoy heir gurgled as Sin flung him across the room with a single gesture.
"You really are an annoying little squirt, aren't you Draco." Sin sneered
BANG!
The blonde slammed into the floor like a ton of bricks.
"I mean, it was fun tormenting you: planting the idea that got you kicked out of potions class and blaming it on me, making your teams brand new brooms attack them, the list goes on. You were a perfect patsy to disgrace." Sin giggled.
"What are you babbling about Potter? How are you doing this?"
"Ya see, that's your first mistake: Thinking that I'm that namby pamby idiot alchemist Harry Potter."
"Then who are you?" Malfoy screeched as invisible hands held him down. It was at that moment he noticed the glazed expressions on the students and teachers faces.
"The name is Sin. And in a few years, you'll be callin' me master, boy!" the homunculus purred.
CHOMP!
Draco screamed as the black haired body squatter sank his teeth into the back of his neck. Malfoy howled and writhed as he tried to squirm out of the grasp of the invisible hands that were holding him.
Finally, after fifteen long seconds, Draco went limp. Sin looked up and wiped the blood off his mouth.
Looking around, he modified the student's memories one by one until all they remembered was Draco trying to curse Harry in the back, and getting a spell upside the head for his trouble.
Naturally, the blond wouldn't remember any of this. The last thing he would recall was flinging his summoned snake at his rival's neck.
Draco wouldn't notice the new ouroboros birth mark on the back of his neck for four years, and by that time it would be too late to undo what had been set in motion.
That night, Sin crept out of the Ravenclaw dorm and toward the Library. This trip had two purposes. First was getting his hands on the Polyjuice potion to keep Hermione occupied in grilling the students about the identity of the Heir of Slytherin. The second purpose was to purloin a few books that contained the really powerful magics that weren't taught to the students. While Harry's body was a nice tool, it had its drawbacks. That incident with the Bludger was a real eye opener. Father's youngest child couldn't rely on his natural abilities to get him out of a jam if he was in deep cover. So finding some good old destructive alternatives was a necessity.
The black haired pre-teen set up a silencing spell around the entrance to the restricted section. Madam Pince always left around ten, so the books were left unattended except for a few protective spells.
After hitting the area with a ward dampening spell provided by his mother and father, Sin got to work.
Going through the stacks one by one, most of the books centered around dark magic that was obviously poisonous in nature. These were the kind of things that rotted your soul from the inside out. The last thing Sin needed was to call any attention to himself by deforming his body with some unknowingly self defacing curse.
That was when he struck proverbial gold!
The first was deep in the stacks, hidden behind a dog eared copy of moste potent potions (which also went into the never full sack that he brought along) was a book entitled Ancient Magic of the Old World by E. A. K. McDowell.
The second was A Guide to Becoming an Animagus, by professor Minerva McGonagall.
These three books would go a long way in arming his host's body into a living weapon.
"Come out slowly!" someone said.
Stiffening, Sin stilled under the invisibility cloak.
TWANG!
THUNK!
The homunculi jerked back when an energy arrow buried itself into the woodwork between two books, an inch from his left ear.
"I said come out. I won't give you another warning." The potions professor growled.
"So much for the rumors about him being the only normal one on the staff…" Sin mumbled under his breath.
WHAM!
A telekentic blow to the chin rocked the demon hunting professor back.
Sin leaped past the staggered professor and ran. Narrowing his eyes, the quincy was hot on his heels.
TWANG!
Another arrow blurred by his head. Sin whirled around and deflected a barrage with a quickly erected mental shield that would have gone through his heart and between his eyes.
"Licht Regen." The potions professor responded.
"Oh SHIT!" Sin yelped as a veritable wall of light arrows flew at him. Then everything went black.
The last quincy didn't like to fight unless he had to But this thing under the invisibility cloak wasn't human by any stretch of the term. It's reiatsu was stagnant, meaning that this thing wasn't alive or dead. The fact that it managed to get into the school and disable the wards protecting the restricted section combined with its status raised all sorts of alarms in his head.
Ishida flipped the still form over with his foot. The invisibility cloak still functioned, despite the fact that the being underneath it was pierced with a hailstorm of arrows.
Just as the Demon hunter was about to reach for the hood, an invisible hand wrapped around his throat and hurled him into the air, slamming him skull first into the stone ceiling.
After knocking the potions professor out cold and stashing him in an unused classroom, Sin pulled off the cloak. He was astonished to see that the rents and tears from the now dissipated energy arrows were growing smaller before his eyes, until the invisibility cloak was as new as the day it was woven.
Another bit of added good fortune was that only one of the books was damaged by the artillery barrage. Sadly, the book on battle magic had been incinerated by the potion professor's last attack, but the other texts had been shielded from the assault.
Sin came to a decision. After this little…debacle, the upper crust of the wizarding world needed to learn that the power players weren't the Pure bloods. No! No! No! Not at all. It was time for the peons to learn that there was a new player in town who didn't care for the rule of society. It was time to hit the nail close to home...with a REALLY big hammer.
Paravati Patil's eyes widened in surprise when none other than Harry Potter was on the other side of the Fat Lady's portrait.
"Listen, Paravati is it? I need you to do me a favor. Do you think you can tell Ginny Weasely I need to talk to her?" the homunculus asked.
Nodding dumbly, the Indian witch disappeared back into the common room.
Seconds later, the youngest Weasley looked guardedly at Harry.
"What can I do for you?' she asked, blushing slightly.
"Well for one thing, you can dial up your better half, I need to talk to him." Sin grinned.
For a moment, Ginny looked confused, until she shuddered, when the shivers passed, she shot him a furious look.
"You are very lucky I don't rip your entrails out through your nose. I told you that we are going to stay out of each others way. If she hadn't been carrying my receptacle, all the work I put into worming my way into this little girl's mind would be for nothing!" the spirit spat angrily.
"Whatever. I thought you might like to take part in the biggest spectacle the wizarding world has ever seen since the Salem Witch hunts!" sin leered.
"Tell me more." The diary bound spirit drawled.
Gesturing to the shadows, the bound and gagged form of Alphonse Elric flew through the air and landed at their feet.
"Have you ever been to a crucifixion?" Sin smirked.
Several hours later, in the sleepy hamlet of Dublith, Edward Elric was resting after a tortuous training session. Izumi curtsy had not been happy to hear what idiots one two and three had been up to over the past several years.
TAP! TAP! TAP!
Ed blinked in surprise when he spied a snowy owl rapping its beak against the window.
Knowing that this was a message from the wizarding world, the oldest Elric reached over and opened the window, allowing the aviant to deposit its message on the dresser and fly off.
Ed transmuted his pointer finger into a letter opener and slit the envelope, allowing the short message and a single picture to flutter to the ground.
The blond's eyes widened in horror as he read the familiar handwriting.
Dear big brother
Greeting from Hogwarts School of witchcraft and Wizardry. Just to give you a heads up, I'm taking good care of your brother's body. Despite some people's efforts, I'm still in good health. Oh, and Alphonse sends his greetings. He turned up here one day as a teaching assistant to our latest defense professor, Lockheart. Enclosed is a picture of us in the great hall.
Hugs and kisses.
Harry "Sin" Potter Elric.
Ed's scream of fury echoed for miles.
Izumi and her husband Sig burst through the door, and were shocked to see Edward Elric sitting in bed, his arms around his legs weeping.
The self proclaimed house wife picked up the picture that had fallen to the floor.
It was of Al, his hands and feet torn from his body, the metallic stumps nailed to the wall. Sin had his arm thrown mockingly around his Brother's shoulders with Al's helmet one one hand and a dagger in the other. The weapon was poised an inch from piercing the Blood seal that tethered the youngest sibling to this world.
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