AN: Well, another chapter into the summer is here and next will be the start of the tournament. I've already discussed the tournament some on one of my forum threads but if anyone wants to contribute to it then, by all means, be my guest. I'm not planning on this taking too long but we'll see how things go, I just hope it's enjoyable to read. This is the summer Sirius escapes but I don't think that Harry will particularly care much about that. In canon, there were so many people trying to protect Harry from Sirius but I don't think that's going to happen here, or at least not to the same degree. Harry has shown that he is capable of taking care of himself and if people try and convince him otherwise I don't see him agreeing.
My forum can be found on my profile or here: forum/Fate-s-Gamble-Behind-the-scenes/139203/
I hope you enjoy the chapter.
Beta'd by: NIX'S WARDEN
Chapter 36 – Visiting Dragons
"Gramps," Harry said as Zelretch dropped something in front of him. "What's this?"
The object in question looked like a human, insofar as it had a head, torso, two arms and two legs at least. It was about twelve inches big though and it had no features, no eyes, no mouth, no nose, nothing like that. It was also a uniform peach colour.
"That, my grandson, is something that I believe would help you and Holly with a certain problem of yours." Harry looked up in interest. Lady Hogwarts, or Holly as she had chosen to be called, was still stuck inside Harry's head despite their numerous attempts at separating. They were like oil and water, they were two different beings which had been mixed together and were attempting to separate into their own selves again.
"How is this supposed to help? It looks like one of Touko Aozaki's puppet bodies that's been miniaturised." Harry asked curiously.
"That is pretty much what it is. I was watching a show and had a bit of an idea." Harry began to worry, Zelretch getting ideas was rarely a good thing. What was worse was that he seemed to like watching anime, magical girl anime, and he tried to recreate the stuff he saw in them. Harry would never forgive the old bloodsucker for that incident when one of those kaleidosticks, the one called Ruby, had gotten loose and Harry had been tasked with tracking it down. That was an incident that Harry had tried to obliviate from his own mind, that led to discovering that the obliviate wouldn't work on him, Harry had been devastated.
"What show in particular was this?" Harry asked, already dreading the answer. Zelretch did things occasionally, things he proclaimed to be 'family experiences', and Harry was always worried what would happen next. There had been that picnic they'd went on by a lake, a lake that for some reason had a phantasmal beast in it that decided to wake up while they were there, that had caused so much chaos.
There had been another time when they'd all went to a restaurant together, one that got held up at gun point while they were there. There was the time that they'd gone on holiday and a typhoon had hit the island they were holidaying at. Making a mental note that even when they weren't trying, things still happened, Harry wondered what the result of Zelretch actively doing something would be.
"I believe it was called Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha." Zelretch told him. "One thing that caught my eye was these things called unison devices. These unison devises were essentially artificially created little people that could temporarily fuse with others to make them more powerful. Actually, let's forget the explanation, I'll show you." The protesting Harry was then dragged off to marathon the entire series of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha with Zelretch, an experience he wouldn't wish upon anyone but his greatest foe.
xxxxx
twenty-three hours later, Harry staggered out of the room where Zelretch had dragged him to watch one of the most ridiculous things he'd ever seen. Seriously, what was it with big pink beams of befriending energy? The show had got it right when the beam-girl was called the white devil at one point, that's really what she was. Besides that, what was up with the magic circles? The girl obviously hadn't learned the theory behind them so why did they keep appearing for her attacks? Were they supposed to believe that a computer did all of that for her?
Regardless of the show that he'd been forced to watch, and Holly had seen through his eyes, he did see at least a little sense in what Zelretch had been talking about. The concept behind the unison devices might work with him and Holly, it would probably be a step forwards regardless.
While Harry and Holly had not yet managed to separate bodies, they had managed to completely separate their minds and selves from each other. Where before it had been a mixture of the two together, they were now like two separate liquids, one atop the other, like water and oil, in a single container.
If they separated their minds like that and then managed to push Holly towards that midget body then they may be able to physically separate. They wouldn't completely separate though, there would still be a connection between them, and they may be able to merge at will like the unison devices did. Harry had taken a look at the little body and it had been almost entirely composed of ether, it was essentially energy given form, so switching it about shouldn't cause any issues.
Deciding that it would be best to do this after a bit of rest, even if he only needed half an hour, Harry headed off to get some sleep. If he'd looked behind him, he would have seen a yawning and smirking Zelretch creep off to go do a little modification to that small puppet body that was behind all of this.
xxxxx
As Harry was getting ready to sleep in one world, Draco Malfoy was stomping about his home in another. He was absolutely furious, that half-blooded bastard Potter had tortured his father in the Great Hall and everyone had stood by and done nothing!
He had only seen the start of the duel before the goat-fucking headmaster chased them out of the hall but he'd managed to get his godfather, Severus Snape, to share the memory with him later that day. When he had actually seen the full thing, he had thrown up. It was beyond ridiculous what Potter had gotten away with and no one had said anything, it was utterly humiliating.
He'd tried to get Potter back for what he'd done over the next few days, before school ended, but everything seemed to go wrong for him and he couldn't understand why. There had been that time when he'd been aiming his wand at Potter round a corner and one of the suits of armour had hit him with the flat side of its weapon. There had been that time he was following him through a door and been about to curse him when the door had suddenly smashed into his face.
No matter when or where it was, there was always something that got in his way! He had once followed Potter into the forbidden forest and the trees themselves seemed to be trying to trip him up and he'd lost sight of Potter. There had been that time when the corridor had been empty and Draco had been about to hex the Hufflepuff when some kind of giant round hammer had smacked him in the back of his head. He'd caught sight of a pair of metal feet that vanished into thin air, whatever that was about.
He was going to get Potter on the train but for some reason the door had been frozen shut. If he had a weaker grasp on sanity then he might have thought that Potter's cat was responsible for that one, he did see it out of the compartment window after all.
Nevertheless, he was going to get Potter. He was a Malfoy and Malfoys should be respected, just look at his father, even the minister listened to him. Draco based everything he thought off of his father, he was the epitome of what someone should be in his mind.
That brought the 'duel' back to his mind. Never mind that his father had lost, he really shouldn't have, but the way that everyone flinched when they heard Potter's name had been ridiculous. There were oddballs, those that thought Potter winning against his father was something that deserved praise. There was that Weasley fangirl, that fanboy of Potter's, Creevy, and that bitch Brocklehurst.
The last one was a bit of a surprise, she hadn't been a Potter fangirl before the duel, but she definitely became a stalker of his afterwards. The Brocklehurst family was traditionally known for being duellists, both their men and their women, and Draco guessed that the Ravenclaw girl had seen something in Potter other than that fluke that had let him in, it couldn't have been anything else as there was no way that Potter could have bested his father without cheating.
His mother had gone to see his father in Saint Mungo's the other day, the healers thought that he would wake up, and Draco had been annoyed that he wasn't allowed to see his father until he had recovered. Draco understood though, his father always needed to be seen as the powerful and influential man that he was and didn't want Draco to see him in the state he would be in.
The blonde little ferret's mind began to try and think of how he could take that bastard out next year, he would do it over the summer but there was no way that Potter would ever attend the parties for the elite of the wizarding society that happened during the holidays. One thing that Draco had learned, if nothing else, was that it was perhaps better to attack from behind and not up front like his father had. Pandering to the Gryffindorish sensibilities of the duel had let Potter cheat his way into winning that match, he had probably drank a potion or worn some protective charm or something.
No, Slytherin was the way to go. He would get Potter and he would get him while his defences were down, though when that was Draco didn't know. There was very little chance of him being able to sneak into the Hufflepuff dormitories and get him without being seen, the puffs would wake up and defend one of their own anyway because of 'loyalty'. He couldn't get him in the Great Hall when everyone was eating as there was no way to do anything there without everyone seeing it. That left the corridors between lessons as one of the only times he could get the freak, he usually disappeared for the weekends.
Draco kept on mumbling to himself as he stomped through the house before heading off to the library. His chosen electives had been Care of Magical Creatures and Ancient Runes, the former because his father owned an acromantula farm and the latter because it was quite a traditional subject. He smirked, he'd heard that Potter was taking Runes and he would make sure that he knew enough to embarrass the half-blood, make everyone see how inferior he was to a pureblood like him. He settled the book on basic runes in his lap and began to read, he would do all he could to embarrass Potter this year.
xxxxx
A few weeks later, Harry was visiting Hermione with Neville. The two Granger girls, Hermione and her sister, were once again trying to educate Neville about the muggle world with partial success. Harry was, once again, experimenting on one of Voldemort's horcruxes in an attempt to separate the magic from the rest of it.
If he managed to do that then an examination of what was left would allow him to answer a question that no wizard had ever been able to find the answer to, was magic divisible? That might seem like a simple question but in reality it wasn't. When Wizards needed more power for a spell then they simply added more wizards to it, that was their basis for rituals of the more advanced sort.
The answer to that question would be determined if Harry could simply get at the magic in the soul piece. If the magic in it was a fragment then he could conclude that wizarding magic was finite and therefore divisible but if not, then he could conclude that magic was infinite and therefore was not weakened by separation.
Harry hoped it was the latter. If it was then his project for implanting these magic cores into non-wizards, i.e. magi, would be so much simpler as he wouldn't have to find a way to enlarge or repair a magical core to standard size before implanting it into whoever he was giving it to.
Harry glanced up to see what Hermione and Sarah were showing Neville only to grimace at what was on the TV. It might not be an actual magical girl anime but they were watching a cartoon of some description and there was a girl dressed like a magical girl would be.
Over the past few weeks, he and Holly had been focusing more and more on their meditation. They practised whenever they had an opportunity, all in the hopes that they would be able to separate when the time came. They hadn't realised how much their personalities had started to bleed into each others so far.
Harry had been more forgiving and happy-go-lucky, not to an extreme degree but still more so than he usually was. Holly had been less affected, her cheery personality growing to include enjoying pranks, but it was still a little scary that it had happened at all.
They were going to try and completely separate, or as close as they were capable of, on Harry's birthday. They would have done it sooner but they didn't want Harry to be disadvantaged during the duelling tournament, they didn't know how separating after nine months of being one being would affect them after all.
Harry pulled a blood pop out of a pocket and put it into his mouth, he really was getting addicted to that particular wizarding candy. Sarah had noticed him though and she was curious about what it was, it looked like an ordinary lollipop but dark red in colour.
"What kind of lolly is that?" She asked. "I've never seen one that colour before." Harry cocked his head and looked over to her before smiling a fanged grin, over the last year his fangs had gotten far more prominent and noticeable making the smile all the more unsettling.
"Want to try one?" He asked. Neville and Hermione looked over to Harry, noticed what was in his hand, and rolled their eyes. They knew how Harry liked those blood pops, neither of them liked them though, and made a few jokes about it because they were designed with vampires in mind.
Emma and Dan, Hermione and Sarah's parents, looked curiously across to see what Harry was offering their younger daughter and were also offered one each. Neville and Hermione refused though when he offered them ones though, they had tried them themselves and had found that neither liked the taste of blood at all.
It seemed the rest of the Grangers shared their tastes though, as the three of them spat the blood pops out after a moment. Harry didn't know what they were complaining about, the coppery tang was absolutely heaven on his tongue but, then again, he was not what one would call normal.
"Yuck!" Sarah said. "Are all magical sweets like that because that was disgusting?" Emma and Dan nodded their heads in agreement before Emma went off to wash the lollys before giving them back to Harry. Hermione decided to explain Harry's taste in sweets to her family.
"No, not all wizarding sweets are like that. Most you would probably find quite nice but this is Harry we're talking about here. Those were blood pops, they're meant for vampires, and are made with human blood. Harry is the oddball that likes them, though I think it was a vampire friend of his that got him hooked on them." She shook her head and Neville piped up with his own piece.
"Very true. While there are sweets aimed at those like vampires, hags, werewolves and whatnot, most sweets are made with humans in mind. I think that we should just be thankful that Harry hasn't actually drank human blood, we'd all have to watch our necks then." They laughed at that and Harry adopted an innocent look that immediately caught Hermione's attention.
"You haven't actually drank human blood, have you?" She asked. Harry smiled at her and let an uncomfortable silence drag out. He watched them all get a little nervous and fidgety before he replied, it was quite amusing to watch.
"I have actually, Altrouge was the one who got me to try it and I will say that I like the taste. That doesn't mean that I'm going to creep into your dormitories at night but, well, it may be best to sleep with one eye open." He chuckled darkly at their expressions which only served to make things worse.
"You know Harry, if you ever went evil I don't think people would be able to tell the difference." Sarah said to him. "I mean, drinking human blood? The whole fanged and blindfolded thing? You dress in black and your footsteps are as quiet as an assassin's. The only thing you need to do now is start torturing and killing people."
"He's already gotten the torturing bit down." Hermione mumbled and Emma shot her a sharp look so she elaborated. "Lucius Malfoy tried to enslave Harry's sister so Harry challenged him to a duel, it's more complicated than that but that was the general shape of things. Anyway, Harry prevented Malfoy from casting a spell or forfeiting and then proceeded to use completely legal, and in some cases usually harmless, spells to send him to the hospital. From what I've heard, he's going to be stuck in there for about two months."
Harry decided to make his point known. "That was more of a message than anything else, a warning as it were. Simply put, I really don't like it when someone messes with my family or friends and if I find that someone has, well, they'll wish they'd gotten off as lightly as Ferret Senior did."
That made Emma and Dan pause, they obviously hadn't heard any of this from their daughter and were wondering what was really going on in the wizarding world. They were also looking warily at Harry, it wasn't normal for an almost thirteen year old to speak so casually about torturing another human being like he was.
The rest of the day was spent talking more on the wizarding world while educating Neville about the muggle one, they were all, excepting Harry, making an effort not to try and bring up a topic that would lead back to something most of them weren't comfortable discussing. At one point Harry told them that he and some friends were going to a dragon reserve in Romania and said that they were all welcome to come along, they told him that they'd think about it.
xxxxx
Rin's eye was once again twitching. It seemed that Harry had decided that another four years was too long to wait to see them again, face to face. That wasn't what was making her eye twitch though, what was causing that was Arcueid Brunestud who was presently braiding Sakura's hair and humming merrily to herself.
Harry and Shirou were both in the kitchen and the smells coming from that direction were making her mouth water, it seemed that both boys were rather good with food. She could cook pretty well herself but what was making her nose twitch and stomach grumble could probably be described as culinary heaven.
A few minutes later and the two boys were coming out of the kitchen with plates of food, the smell became even more enticing as it came closer. The five of them sat down to eat and Arcueid made a comment about them making sure they'd made enough, Rin twitched quite severely at the light-hearted and playful tone of voice. She froze when one of the platters of food on the table suddenly became two.
"What just happened?" She asked, staring at the two equally sized plates of food. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Harry tucking a stick back into a holster of some sort on his arm. She decided to glare at him until he gave her an answer, the glare just seemed to amuse him.
Shirou looked curiously at the suddenly appearing food. "That wasn't projection." He muttered under his breath. Harry just continued smiling at everyone, not replying to Rin's glare at all. That 'suddenly appearing' food was the result of Harry looking into one of the weirder laws of Wizardcraft.
In Transfiguration there was a rule called Gamp's law. That law had five exceptions to what could be conjured and food was one of them but there were ways around that. If you knew where the food was then you could summon it, if there already was food then you could transform it into a different sort of food but his favourite exception to the rule was that you could increase the quantity if you already had some. With that and preservation charms, it was pretty much impossible for a witch or wizard to go hungry because they could constantly increase how much food they had on them without limit.
Arcueid didn't seem to care that Harry was doing the impossible, from a Magecraft point of view at least, and simply enjoyed the food in front of her. Harry just ate slowly and meticulously as well, occasionally feeding Len who was sat in his lap some of it.
Sakura just ate quietly as well, secretly amused at someone annoying Rin like Harry currently was. Sakura wondered if either Harry or Shirou would teach her how to cook, this really was incredibly tasty. Harry decided to ask a question right then, he'd asked Hermione and her family about going to the dragon reserve with him and thought that he should ask these friends as well.
"You know, myself and some others are going to a reserve for animals in Romania in a week or two. I was wondering, would you three like to accompany us?" Harry asked innocently. He was obviously not innocent enough though as Rin narrowed her eyes at him.
"What kind of animals would we be seeing?" She asked suspiciously. Harry's smile didn't reassure her, it was rather unlikely they would go to Romania to see fluffy bunny rabbits and she was sure that, whatever they'd see, was probably on the other side of normal.
"Something you wouldn't otherwise see if you didn't accept the invitation." Harry told her. "I want to see your reaction to it first, it's out of this world." Harry chuckled at that last bit, it really was out of this world as it was back in the other one. "Of course," He added. "I'm asking all three of you, not just miss twitchy here." That caused Rin to twitch some more.
xxxxx
Eventually, all three of them agreed to go with him. They did ask about transportation and a few other things but Harry said that it would all be taken care of. He was being honest as well, he would simply use the Kaleidoscope to get everyone there, he had gone on a rather long and not so pleasant broom flight to Romania so he knew where he was going after all.
Right then though, Harry was in France. Nick and Penny had written him a letter asking if he wanted to visit and Harry had agreed. It hadn't been long before they had gotten into a discussion on alchemy and Harry was surprised that the philosopher's stone wasn't the only the only method of turning something into gold, it was simply the only way to turn anything into gold. Regular alchemy could transmute iron and lead, as well as a few other metals, into gold just fine.
"You know," Penny spoke up at one point. "I've heard that you are going to participate in this years International Duelling Tournament. Is my information correct?" Nick looked surprised and looked towards Harry who was nodding.
"Yes, it is. Professor Flitwick suggested it and I agreed. To be honest, with only one hundred and twenty eight places available, I expected other people in England to contest me getting a place." Harry had expected there to be a national or even European tournament from which the victor would go on to the International Duelling Tournament.
It was Nick who provided an answer though. "That would normally have been true but during the war with Voldemort the stadium in Britain was destroyed, it was a terrorist attack against the public, and hasn't been rebuilt. There is also the pureblood pride to consider, they don't like losing to those 'of lesser blood' or foreigners and the tournament has the risk of both happening. It doesn't make things better that of the last four British champions, only one was a pureblood."
Harry nodded. "What do you think the effect of me taking part is going to be?" He asked curiously, there would obviously be an impact but what it was he had no idea.
"Initially, humiliation for Britain. That someone so young, boy-who-lived or not, will be competing as a representative of theirs will make the adults look bad." Penny said. "Then again, I've heard what you did to Lucius Malfoy recently and some people will be wary of you because of it, others will dismiss it either as rumour or the newspapers blowing things out of proportion. If you actually win the tournament then there will still be the humiliation there, that a twelve year old is the best duellist in England or out of it, but it will also boost your reputation and sway public opinion your way." Penny sat her cup of tea down.
"I heard about what you did to Lucius Malfoy." Nick said. "How much of that was true? Do you mind sharing the memory with us in a penseive?" He asked. Harry agreed and soon there was a rune engraved bowl on the table, a silvery liquid of some kind in it.
Harry had read about penseives and knew what to do. It was an odd feeling pulling a copy of a memory out of his head, the bright silver thread attached to his wand looked rather weird to him and to think, that silver thread was a memory out of his head, it seemed rather surreal to him. He put the memory in the basin and entered it along with Penny, Nick and his Servants. Len stayed behind and enjoyed some of the snacks that Harry had brought with him.
Nick and Penny spent the entire time focusing on the duel but, this time around, Harry focused on the audience and how they reacted to everything. It was shortly after Harry had flayed Lucius arm open, his one bit of Magecraft apart from his initial reinforcement, that Dumbledore began herding the students out of the hall.
It wasn't just Dumbledore that reacted to that rather violent act, the minister dropped his bowling hat and a number of people actually flinched as the spray of blood flew through the air and landed on some of those who were closest to the duel.
When he began to torture the bastard, there were a number of different reactions throughout the hall. A number of the observers paled quite a bit, some of them turning a little green, as they kept silent at the spectacle in front of them. They had probably expected a number of less damaging spells to be employed, stunners and disarmers most likely, and were probably unused to seeing much blood.
During the 'duel', a few of the remaining observers, those that were most green, left the hall but there was one person that Harry focused on that didn't react like he had expected. Narcissa Malfoy just watched impassively, not seeming to care about what was happening to her husband at all. Harry made a mental note to ask Dobby just how good the relationship between her and Lucius had been, better ask about her relationship with Ferret junior as well.
Harry's eyes flickered back to Nick and Penny who had been watching the duel and was amused to see that only Nick seemed a little unnerved, not much but still unnerved, by what was happening. He really should remember that the Flamels were French and were probably more than aware about what they had done to earn that name.
The duel was over once Lucius Malfoy had fainted and the three of them returned to the Flamels home. Nick and Penny were silent for a moment as they looked at the swirling contents of the penseive before Penny spoke up.
"That was both good and bad for you. I'm saying good because, one, it struck the message that you undoubtedly wanted it to and two, it didn't show how could or bad you'd be in an actual duel because it was completely one-sided. It's bad because, one, you were rather vicious and people tend to be more wary of those like that and two, it showed quite the range of skills that someone your age shouldn't really have. The blood wolves are an example of that, not the most light of magic and not the most simple either, the same goes for your confringo and the like." Harry nodded with her.
Nick then added his bit. "We're not saying that it was a bad thing to do, I understand why you were as vicious as you were, but from a duellists point of view there are signs that would allow opponents to prepare for you. One way they could do that is to look into blood magic, there are potions that you can drink that would make your blood useless for those wolves or similar things for a time." Harry nodded in understanding.
"What you need is a number of 'aces' as it were, more than one is preferable, so tell us what you have got hidden away for any surprises that come your way." Penny said to him and Harry smiled, he had a number of things that he hadn't shown anyone and a few things that he was still working on.
"I suppose I can tell you about the ones that some people already know about. An example of that is the orbs that people at Hogwarts have seen me use." At this, Harry created five of his orbs and began to move them around independently. "There's the times that I've had weapons appear out of thin air," Harry then projected a halberd into his hands. "and I suppose that there are the black keys as well." Harry pulled one of the hilts from his belt and a moment later the blade appeared as well.
"What do black keys do?" Penny asked, eyeing the blade carefully.
Harry drew five more and held three in each hand, between the knuckles as they were meant to be wielded. "They're meant to be held like this, executors are supposed to learn martial arts that build finger strength, and they are meant to be thrown as well. Basic black keys, which these are, are rather effective against the undead and things like that. They also have a rather amusing effect if they strike someone's shadow, if they do that then that person becomes incapable of moving while their shadow is impaled." He explained.
"What about non-regular black keys? Do you know how to modify them like that?" Nick asked, his eyes alight with interest. Harry supposed that being as old as he was, Nick would always be curious about things he'd never seen before. He saw the same curiosity in Penny though she didn't display it as openly.
"There are spell sigils which can be engraved on them and I think that I'd be able to find out what they are but I don't know them myself. The ones I'm aware of are the Cremation Sacrament, it makes the blade ignite and burn when it pierces its target, the Dokhma Sacrament, which dehydrates what they hit, the Interment Sacrament, that one causes petrification, and the Jhator Sacrament, that one calls forth crows to devour what the blades hit." Harry tapped his chin for a moment. "I have twelve black keys and that is four Sacraments so I wonder if I should engrave three each of them with a sigil." He mused.
Penny snorted. "The fact that you can talk so easily about summoning crows to devour someone, something that I'm sure is rather painful and also quite visually disconcerting, makes me wonder if you are going to be a new Dark Lord or something in the years to come." Her amused smile on her face told Harry that she was joking but he decided to play along.
"I don't know. I mean, Dark Lords get so much bad publicity, do you think that I could petition to get my own 'dark' title?" Harry chuckled. "Never mind that. In regards to those kinds of things, if I take down an enemy I like to know that they will not be getting back up again. Malfoy was an exception and if he does anything again then he might just, I don't know, disappear."
Penny shook her head and the two of them soon devolved into laughter while Nick looked on in bemusement. "Ah, what is a man to do? Here is his wife and a young boy discussing ways to maim and kill such innocent people and I am caught betwixt my duty as a faithful husband and my duty to the good people of the world." His twitching lip gave him away though and soon he too was laughing with them.
Fran and Liz just watched the three of them in amusement while enjoying a cup of tea each. The two of them liked being here because the Flamels already knew about them, or had already met them at least, when Liz had put her spear to Nick's throat the first time Harry had visited the previous year.
Penny calmed down first. "I think that I speak for both I and my husband when I say that we will be at the Tournament this year, we expect it to be rather interesting with you competing." She said to Harry.
Nick agreed with his wife and added. "Yes, I think it will be quite something. I also believe that you are holding out on us in regards to what you have as aces, I'm sure you have some other things that you intend to take with you unless I'm wrong."
Harry tried to adopt an innocent look but thought that he might have failed, he did have a few other projects going. One of his projects would probably cause Rin to throttle him if she ever saw it, it being an idea he had gained from thinking about her own jewelcraft. Another of his ideas was an expansion on his sympathetic magic research and something that he thought was very ninja-like. He would take them all with him of course, and he always had an army of Primate Murder patronuses in his mind too if all else failed. Harry had to suppress a chuckle at that, his mind was steadily filling up with Primate Murders and there was now almost one hundred of them in there, he'd probably stop when he got to around five hundred as he doubted he would ever use that many of them at once.
Harry kept talking to them for a while, exchanging ideas about a variety of subjects, not just alchemy, and becoming rather intrigued by some of the rituals and blood magic that Penny and Nick knew that they were willing to teach him. They told him that some things had only been classified as dark within recent years, the unforgivables themselves had only been made illegal in seventeen seventeen, less than three hundred years ago.
xxxxx
The twitch in Rin's eye was becoming an almost permanent thing. When Harry had said that she would be seeing something 'out of this world' she'd expected some kind of animal preserve for dangerous creatures but what she was seeing, well, she had never expected to see one, ever.
"Dragons, Harry?" She asked the smiling pre-teen in a blindfold. Shirou was looking in awe of the creatures whilst Sakura was looking at the other people with Harry, most of them were female and Rin herself was trying not to look at some of them herself.
With Harry was a girl called Hermione Granger, her parents and sister too. There was also a boy called Neville Longbottom and his grandmother but they seemed fairly normal. It was those that were stood closest to Harry that were causing Rin to think about pulling her hair out.
To start with, there was Arcueid Brunestud, the White Princess of the True Ancestors. She seemed to find the dragons cute and was muttering about taking one home and introducing it to 'Carla', Rin didn't think she wanted to know who or what Carla was.
Then there was Altrouge Brunestud, the Eclipse Princess of Black Blood. Seeing her there, stood near to Arcueid Brunestud and not have the two fighting like everything she'd ever heard about them suggested they should be was going to give her a headache, she was sure of it, and she was also sure that they were getting along because of one Harry Potter.
Also there with them was Zelretch himself, someone that Rin was being especially wary of. She knew how Harry seemed to enjoy irritating her and did not want to find out how much worse the guy he called Gramps could be, there was also the fact that he was rather influential at the Clock Tower, somewhere that she wished to study at in a few years so making a good impression was something she'd like to do.
There were two people there that said their names were Stheno and Euryale, Rin crushed the thought that suggested their names were more than just coincidence, and she convinced herself that she was not stood next to two figures from Greek mythology. Those things just didn't happen and she wouldn't let anyone convince her otherwise! Then again, she was apparently in an alternate reality looking at a dragon reserve so she wondered how much of her sanity she should be listening too.
To round things off there were two more people that were introduced to her as Liz and Fran, two people who were quite obviously not human. Rin guessed that she would just have to accept that spending any amount of time around Harry Potter meant spending time around things that defied logic as she knew it, the only other option was insanity and she didn't find that a particularly attractive choice.
The group of them walked towards a building that Rin guessed the workers used, it was rather practical in that it seemed to be made from stone rather than wood which wouldn't burn under dragon fire, and saw a ginger person come out of the building and head their way.
As she walked towards this person, Rin was quite glad that English was taught in japanese schools because she realised that the Hermione girl and the Neville boy didn't know a word of Japanese. The girl seemed to have a lot of questions and Rin answered the ones that she could about Japan in general, she didn't know anything about any magical schools in Japan as her world seemed to be significantly different from this one, something that Hermione seemed to be unaware of.
Rin herself had a lot of questions but she asked them as carefully as she good, feeling a little bit superior that she was aware of the fact that she was in another world whereas Hermione seemed to think she was from this world's Japan. She asked a few questions of Hermione and Neville and became rather irritated with how free and all-encompassing their magic seemed, she also found out about how Harry had made more food appear the last time he'd been by, something about Gamp's law of elemental transfiguration and the first exception, which also had exceptions attached to it.
"Hey there, you must be Charlie." Harry called out when the redhead who came out to greet them was in hearing range. He smiled at the man, he looked rather physically fit, unlike most wizards, and Harry took note of the scars and burns that he could see, it looked like working with dragons was a rather dangerous job.
"You must be Harry, the twins did say that you would be coming by. What they didn't say was how many would be coming with you, mind introducing me to everyone?" He asked. The twins seemed to like Harry and they generally had good judgement, he chose to ignore whatever his little sister Ginny had to say about him, she had something of a crush on the whole boy-who-lived thing after all.
"Sure." Harry said before introducing everyone. Charlie told them that he had heard about Neville and Hermione, smartest witch of her age had been how he'd described her which made her parents smile. It seemed that all three of the Japanese were good with English, Rin was the top student, Shirou had Taiga, an English teacher for a guardian and Sakura only stumbled occasionally which Harry helped her with.
Both Harry and Sakura missed some of the amused looks sent their way when he helped her with words or pronunciation, a few people noticed that she had chosen to stand beside him rather than the other two Japanese people there. Zelretch managed to snap off a picture without either of them noticing and wondered how many albums he'd be able to fill with all of these pictures that they kept taking.
xxxxx
Their time at the reserve was quite fun, Hermione and her parents and sister seemed to like the rather docile Welsh Green while Rin was quite taken with the Chinese Fireball, it was the same red as her shirt. Harry did go eye to eye with a Hungarian Horntail until it noticed Liz, as all of the dragons before it had.
It seemed that, like Harry with snakes, dragons also paid special attention to Liz. No matter which world he was in, snakes still noticed something different about him despite Stheno and Euryale having nothing to do with the world he was born in. Liz, it seemed, also had that special quality in regards to dragons, without the ability to speak a shared language though, and Charlie did comment that he'd never seen the dragons react like that to anyone else before.
During their visit, Harry noticed Zelretch taking pictures with a camera and decided that an enlarged photo of a dragon, especially a moving image, would make one hell of a poster and summoned a camera for himself as well. He got a few snaps of some people interacting with the dragons and one especially good one of a Hebredian Black nuzzling Sakura who had stuck with him all through the day.
After the day was over, Harry took Hermione and her family home before doing the same for Rin, Sakura and Shirou. He was about to disappear when Rin put a hand on his shoulder. He turned around and wondered if all of his teasing was about to come back and bite him in the ass at the look in her eyes.
"So, Harry, how long was it going to be until you told us about this other world and their completely different magic system?" She asked. Harry averted his eyes and whistled a little. He took note that Shirou hadn't actually worked that bit out but Sakura seemed to have done so.
"Honestly? A year or so actually. If Zelretch is right then a Grail War is going to occur within a year or so and I thought that after that would be a good time to see how everyone and everything is going." Harry told them. Rin and Sakura froze, Rin looked surprised that the next war was so soon but there was something in Sakura's look that wasn't quite surprise but resignation, he could be wrong though.
"The war is going to start again? So soon?" Rin asked. She hadn't expected that but there a was a grim set to Harry's expression that conveyed determination. "Are you wanting to participate and win the Grail War, Harry?" She asked, that would explain why he was in Fuyuki like he was but he shook his head.
"The only interest the Grail War has for me is one of the Servants that should be summoned. You'll know what I'm talking about when you see her, her appearance should tip you off that she's the one I'm looking for. As for actually winning the war? I couldn't care less about the Grail itself or the wish." Harry told her.
"One of the Servants, huh? Why would you be interested in one of them? I really don't think that a Heroic Spirit would know you, not unless you're a lot older than we've been led to believe, and I can't think of anything that one of them might know that would be relevant today." Rin said.
Harry just shook his head. "No, I actually am twelve. I'll be turning thirteen July thirty-first and the Heroic Spirit in question wouldn't know me, nor would she know anything of relevance to today. Don't worry about it though, my interest in the war shouldn't make much of a difference to whatever you plan to do." Rin decided to let the matter drop but she still had her reservations about whatever Harry was intending to do. "Oh," Harry remembered something. "I purchased a house near here. As the second owner of Fuyuki, do you give me permission to set up my own workshop within the area?"
Rin just shook her head. "I doubt that me saying no would stop you. Go ahead, do it, just don't do anything that would put the people in danger, do anything that would expose Magecraft to the world or something else that is common sense for normal people." Harry chuckled and agreed.
"Well, I'd best be off." Harry was about to leave once again when he found he had another hand on his shoulder, Sakura's this time. He looked up at her curiously, wondering why she had stopped him.
"Would you mind visiting a little more often from now on?" She asked. "It's been... fun having you around, you always manage to make a normal day something special." Harry gave her a smile, not one of his creepy or unsettling ones but a genuine smile that seemed to convey a sense of warmth and caring to all three of the people there.
"Sure I will." He replied. "I have the entire summer holidays to go before I'm back at boarding school, and now it looks like I'm going to be a teacher as well, but I'm sure that I can get away for a few weekends to come and visit. Tell you what, I'll keep coming back over summer and a few weekends in September and November but I'll be here for the week of Christmas and invite you all to my place that I'm sorting out, how does that sound?" He asked.
Sakura smiled at him and hugged him, Rin just smiled and told him that he'd better 'add Shirou to the Kitchen to make the food extra delicious' and Shirou agreed as well. Harry did also say that he would come by to spar with Shirou on occasion as he had picked up a little Kendo from Taiga Fujimura, his guardian, and wanted to learn more weapon skills if possible.
xxxxx
Once Harry was back in the Clock Tower, he looked to see if any of his mail had arrived. Stheno came to investigate what that cackling sound was and found Harry with some large bags in front of him. Upon realising that her little brother was laughing over four thousand marbles in four separate colours, she decided to just leave him to it and get some sleep. It wasn't the oddest thing she'd ever seen and she knew that there was probably a valid reason for his amusement, it was best just to leave things be.
That stockpile of marbles was the start of Harry spending a lot more time in his workshop than he had previously and there was a definite increase in the number of explosions that came from that direction, Harry's experiments usually didn't result in explosions, but no one gave it any thought. There was one point when Waver had asked what he was doing in there and Harry had told them that he was preparing for the duelling tournament, after that everyone began to worry for the other participants safety.
After a while, a pattern began to emerge in the explosions and they could be separated into four categories. One was fire, Harry sometimes came out of his workshop looking a little crispy and war. The second was ice, there had been some ice crystals left on his clothes at times and his boots were often coated in it. The third was electricity, they often heard the crackle of electricity coming from the room and once Harry had emerged from there with his hair stood on end and a twitch in his eye. All of these explosions came with a concussive blast but that seemed to be an explosion all of its own, one that's sole purpose was to be like a grenade of compressed air under pressure.
Once the explosions were over though, then came the noises of an angle-grinder and other things used to sharpen metal. Some swearing, primarily in Greek and Parseltongue, sometimes came from the room at those times and once when Zelretch had popped his head in, he had seen some rather deep cuts in the walls from something.
In between all of the things that he was working on in his workshop, Harry kept visiting his friends in Japan and even decided to say hello to Hermione at one point. The latter was slightly more difficult as the Grangers had taken their yearly trip to France and had been quite surprised to see Harry track them down there, he had actually found them because they had ran into a disguised Nick and Penny who had recognised her from descriptions that Harry had given them.
During his time before the duelling tournament, Harry also made four portkeys that he gave to his elves after Zelretch had altered them so instead of going between two locations, they went between two worlds instead. He found it very useful as the elves made sorting out the house he'd purchased in Fuyuki liveable in no time, once he'd gotten a hold of all of the necessary materials of course.
Speaking of those elves, they had now passed him in what potions they were making. Don't get him wrong, Harry could probably brew pretty much any potion from a recipe but those elves had learned all that they could in a remarkable short space of time. They had now begun the purchase of animals that could be reared for other potions ingredients, things like armadillos for their bile, ashwinders for their eggs, bats for their blood and spleens, billywigs, dragonflies,eels, frogs and other things.
They now had quite the stockpile of potions too and Harry really needed to see about making those offers to sell them and the ingredients off. He had the ones that the Malfoys dealt with but thought that he'd also be able to make some money by selling the completed potions to Saint Mungo's and a few other places as well. Come to think of it, he could sell them amongst the enforcers and others in his own world as well. Seeing as he was an actual known quantity and he had good relations with the enforcers, what with the training dummies and potions that he'd already shared with them, he decided to start there and perhaps start his own little business empire.
It was an amusing thought but also one that was completely possible. The potions that could be made with Wizardcraft were like nothing that was available in the magus world, and there certainly weren't production lines of it either. With that decided, Harry made his first foray into the business world with the enforcers and came out with a resounding success.
The basic medical potions were rather popular with them and Harry made sure to note down which ones sold well in order to work out what he should make more of and what wasn't particularly popular so he needn't make as many of. Wound cleansing, blood replenisher, skele-gro, general healing potions and ones that increased the drinkers alertness were the ones that sold fastest and Harry was quite happy with how things were going. Considering that a number of the necessary ingredients for some of the potions simply didn't exist in that world meant that Harry had no need to worry about someone else trying to work out how to make their own as, one, the ingredients just weren't available and, two, some steps required magic to be used in certain ways that most magi couldn't replicate.
xxxxx
When it came time for Harry to leave for the duelling tournament, Harry had handed out his dozen tickets. He had given one to Zelretch, one each to Stheno and Euryale and one to Waver, who had been unable to go to the dragon reserve with them. Aoko had gotten one, as had Sakura, Shirou and Rin. Harry had given the other four to Arcueid, Altrouge, Hermione and Neville. Everyone said they'd be there and Harry was looking forward to the challenges that he would undoubtedly face.
The first day of the tournament would be Monday the twenty-sixth of July and there would be sixteen matches on that day, each one an eight person free-for-all. The second day would have eight single matches and a smattering of other things going on, carnival type things. The third day would switch things up by having doubles matches, two versus two. That day would have far more going on than just the matches though, the matches still being the highlight, with staged fights and other crowd pleasers.
The semi-finals came after that, pitting the winning side of the two versus two fights against their former partners, which was a rather sneaky thing to do. The idea was that you would watch both your opponents and your ally in the two versus two match and would use what you know to take them out. Matches had been lost in the past when someone paid more attention to who they might fight in the next round than they did to their current opponents and had been taken out because of it.
The final would be in the evening of the Friday, the day before Harry's birthday and the entire day would be geared towards the excitement of the coming match. The commentators would discuss both of the competitors previous games and how they had shaped up in them, how they fought and what they believed the chances of either one of them winning would be. Before the final match, there would be one between the two who lost out in the semi-finals, to decide who was in third place, and they would both be asked to comment on their former opponents and what they thought of the chances of either one winning was.
Harry thought over what he'd done to prepare and mentally chuckled as he thought of how he would look. He would be wearing a plain black shirt and trousers over which there would be segments of armour and then his black dragon-hide trench coat with the Gorgon's eye on the back. He would have all twelve of his black keys on his belt at his waist, none of them had any sigils on them, and he would also have a few new things that no one had yet seen. He would have his usual fingerless glove on his left hand but he would wear a full glove on his right and there would be a razor disk attached to his right hip, more of a large ring than a disk as there was nothing in the middle, and there would be four pouches strapped to his waist on the left side as well. Those pouches would be fastened down against his legs to stop them being jostled about as he moved and each of them had an expansion charm cast in their insides. Within each pouch there would be one colour of marble, either rid, blue, yellow or clear. Harry would have his vambraces on his arms, his wand in a holster on the right one and a dagger in the left one.
Harry chuckled, he had made sure that he was well prepared for this and if he was going to get knocked out then he was damn sure that he would make it as difficult as possible for his opponent. Another reason for his preparations was so that it was more difficult to prepare for him, the more unknown tricks that he had the easier it would be to slip one past an opponent's guard.
Making sure that he had everything in place, Harry stepped out of his room to see everyone waiting for him. As a participant he had to be there the day before to make sure all of the paperwork was in order and so he had a chance to meet everyone else in the competition.
Harry smiled at them all before asking Zelretch to take him to the competition. The old bloodsucker would be the one to pick everyone up tomorrow and bring them to the competition which was being held in Germany this year. That was one of he bad things about the competition, it had to conform to the laws of whatever country it was being hosted in at the time and it was in a different one each year.
Luckily, Germany was quite liberal with what was legal and not in terms of magic. The unforgivables were illegal, as they were in most ICW countries, but there were a number of dark spells that were illegal in Britain that could be used there which Harry would be practising while he had the opportunity and it was legal to ask about them.
Giving everyone a last round of hugs, Harry stood next to Zelretch who would be taking him there, as Harry hadn't had the chance to go there himself he couldn't do it alone. He looked up at the man who he called Gramps before nodding his head. Zelretch grinned down at him, put one hand on his shoulder and then they disappeared.
When everything came back into focus, Harry looked at the stadium before him and could only wonder how strong the enchantments on it must be to keep muggles from noticing it. The building was huge and seemed to have been built along the same lines as the Colosseum in Rome, this one was simply in better condition than that one was.
He saw the entrance that he was supposed to go in and waved at Zelretch before heading on in, a bag in his back with some spare clothes and other essentials that he might need for the week. One of the rules of the International Duelling Tournament was that the competitors weren't allowed to leave the stadium or the underground areas that were provided for them. Harry didn't mind, he was ready and raring to go.
Zelretch watched Harry go with a smirk on his face and wondered just how interesting the next week would be. He disappeared without a sound and if anyone was close enough then they would have heard the chuckling of an old man long after he had left.