Chapter 32: Wards and Opinions
Dolores Umbridge made sure she knew exactly when Potter was supposed to be in detention with Ross and had a plan in place to spy on them during the detention to figure out what was going on between them.
By 8:15, she was making her way towards the DADA corridor, knowing that the two should be in the middle of a detention right then and that if she just walked by, even the great Kate Ross would probably not notice, and even if she did, it wasn't exactly something she would be suspicious about. Unfortunately for her, Professor Ross's classroom door was shut.
She approached it and carefully listened for a moment, trying to determine if the two would notice if she opened the door. She thought of an excuse to be there, just in case. For some reason, she was incredibly nervous about doing this because she knew that Potter was dangerous and that Ross could be dangerous if she were so inclined, not to mention, Ross was untouchable right now.
She leaned closer to the door to listen, "Harry, you need to be more natural when you move your feet, these maneuvers are much more advanced than what most people can do, so the footwork, which I understand is different, is extremely important. Try again, use a disarming spell this time with the move."
She heard Ross say, her eyes narrowed as her heart thumped in her chest, she knew that they could only be doing one thing. Her blood rushed in her ears as she felt her worst fears seize her, Ross was helping Potter. Whether it was unwittingly, the boy was a nasty liar, or she was in a league with he and Dumbeldore, she did not know. But she had to put a stop to this immediately.
She thought heard a rustling sound from nearby and jumping violently, hands shaking as she groped around for her wand, "Who's there?" She looked around quickly, eyes darting from side to side, but she found nothing and suddenly felt quite foolish as she made eye contact with a painting on the other side of the hall.
She decided she could break up Potter's little lesson later. She hurried off, trying to justify her exit as something other than running away.
EARLIER THAT EVENING WITH HARRY
"I've got to go." Harry announced to his two best friends.
Both heads snapped up in surprise, "Already?" Hermione asked, casting a Tempus, only to realize that her friend was right.
"Yeah, though I think we made a lot of progress tonight." Harry said with a nod towards their notebook full of information on the Hogwarts Charter. Tonight, they had been tracing the records of the Charter through the 14th century, which was rather difficult considering the fact that the Plague was happening at the same time, as was the Hundred Years' War, which meant it wasn't a great time for written records.
Nonetheless, they had managed to narrow down the path of the charter to four possibilities, two of which intertwined quite frequently according to the evidence they could gather in history books and other notes, which meant that all three thought that it was the most likely path for the stupid paper. Kate had agreed and reminded them that they more times a story is repeated by unconnected sources, the more accurate the story probably was, or in this case, figuring out where they knew the Charter was prior to whatever event and then what happened to everything once said event happened. To say it was difficult, tedious, and a lot of guessing, would be like saying Kate was good at magic, a gross understatement.
"We'll keep looking while you're serving time." Ron said, surprising both of his friends.
"What?" He asked defensively after a moment of silence.
"Ron Weasley, offering to do more research?" Harry joked.
The redhead in question shrugged, "It's actually pretty interesting and isn't there some Rogue bylaw about this sort of thing?"
"Probably." Harry shrugged, glancing at Hermione.
Hermione caught him and rolled her eyes, "You would know better than me." She told him dryly.
Harry grinned sheepishly, "Well it's not like Kate sits there and lectures me about rules, is it?"
"That'd be a weird thing for an older sister to do, teacher or not." Ron commented. "Sounds more like Hermione's job."
Hermione tutted him and Harry began to pack his stuff up to leave. He slung his bag over his shoulder and mock saluted his friends before he made his, cheerfully, to Kate's office.
He made it there in good time, only stopping briefly to give Professor Dumbledore a polite hello before continuing on his way.
By the time he walked into Kate's classroom, he'd already decided to ask her for help on what he could teach the DA at their next meeting as, combined with Kate's classes, most of the Hogwarts population was nearly caught up to where they should be, according to Kate.
Apparently, Kate had found the time to contact Frankie and ask her to get the general syllabus for DADA from Ilvermony. It was hard for her to line up the curriculum because Ilvermonry had more class options than Hogwarts that could be substituted for DADA or other core classes as part of the school's efforts to be more like muggle high schools. For example, there was a dueling elective that counted as DADA credit and an Animagus class that could be substituted for Transfiguration. Harry vaguely recalled the Rogues choosing classes together in hopes they'd get as many classes together as possible.
He shook all those thoughts from his mind as he sat down and watched Kate bounce in, wearing muggle running shorts and a tee shirt.
"Ready to start?" She asked cheerfully.
Harry grinned and hopped up, rolling his shoulders and swinging his arms to loosen up.
"Let's start with blocking unforgivables." Kate said, gesturing for Harry to stand in the middle of the cleared classroom.
He got set into a basic duelling stance and glanced around quickly at everything he could summon to block his sister's spells.
Kate opened fire with stinging hexes altered to be either green or red depending on what spell she was imitating. At first she just shot spells straight at him and did not move around, only alternating what part of his body she aimed at, but several minutes into the exercise Kate began darting around the room, forcing Harry to move to keep her in front of him. The more Kate moved around, the more Harry had to use duelling maneuvers instead of simply turning. Eventually, Kate threw him a massive curveball when she apparated to the otherside of the room and nailed him with a stunner.
When Harry woke, the first thing that he saw was his sister's smirk. He gaped at her for a moment as a voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Hermione, was screaming that you couldn't apparate in Hogwarts.
"Wha-how?" He sputtered, staring at her wide-eyed.
Kate shrugged, "Wards are like massive magical dome imbued with a single purpose, and the magic, depending on the strength of the caster, is a certain thickness is the best word for it, I suppose, all the way around. When you attack the ward, whichever area you attack, the magic of the ward moves that direction to reinforce it, and you either have more power than the ward and break it, or you don't. Most wards however, especially powerful ones, can be pushed so all the magic is reinforcing one side, which creates a hole you can sneak through on the other side. This is hard to do without destroying the ward, which would usually alert the caster to the fact that there is an intruder. Hogwarts wards, and other ward schemes, have multiple layers of the same ward, cast and woven together to prevent a single ward from getting pushed to the point that there is a hole, because when that happens, there is another ward right there that you now have to attack. The idea is that once you attack the next ward, it automatically reinforces, plugging the hole thoroughly. I won't get into how you weave wards together, but there are ways to slip between the two wards which allow you to go through one hole, let in close, and attack the next ward, go through that hole, and so on. Hogwarts is hard because of the amount of power it requires to push the ward to the point of a hole and the fact that there are so many layers it would be nearly impossible to actually break the wards, which would warn the whole castle anyway."
"And you attacked the apparition wards?" Harry asked.
Kate grinned cherrifully, "The first time always takes a minute but afterwards, your magic knows what to do so it takes a split second."
"You are actually powerful enough to get through the wards?" Harry asked incredulously.
Kate gave him a chatising look, "Do you really doubt me that much? Dumbledore and maybe even Voldemort could too, just Voldemort apparating here by himself and then having to get back out, having never had a chance to know the wards from the inside, would be extremely stupid and impractical."
Harry nodded, "Right."
"But that is not why I did that, can you guess what I want to go over today? Before you say anything, I know that Drake taught you to apparate already, so that isn't what we're doing."
Harry blinked, "How'd-"
"I know everything." She cut him off with an air of mock superiority.
Harry snorted, "How to deal with apparating during duels?"
"Got it in one!" She chirped. "There are several moves you can use, but it is important to remember that aparating, while it may seem instantaneous, is not. You have less than a second, but it is a long less than a second because of the speed in which duels usually move, to get ready. Usually if you pay attention, people look where they are about to go, so if they do disappear you have a general idea and can duck and roll or be ready to attack. Remember, it usually takes people a moment to get orientated after aparating, so you can use that to your advantage and very few people can apparate silently so that is also a give away of where they are. The only real advantage of apparating during a duel is the shock factor against less experienced duellists and the ability to potentially move faster than you opponent can, giving you an opening to hit them. It is not used as much as it might otherwise be as a result, that and most people need to concentrate for a second before they can apparate."
"Then why-?" Harry muttered.
"Because you are dealing with Voldemort, and he knows all of this too, and will probably try to use it to throw you off and intimidate you with a tactic you shouldn't have seen before because it is illegal in most duelling circuits. It is less of a skill tactic than a survival, fighting kind of thing."
"Ah" Harry grimaced but began to imitate Kate's feet as she showed him how to move spin quickly and in a way that kept most of his surroundings at an angle where he could fire off spells and turn to easily.
Until his stepped on his own foot and fell over. And they got his legs caught up on each other and fell to his he did it right but pushed his leg to hard and spun all the way around instead of only part way. Eventually he got the basic movement with his feet. Now all he had to do was swing his arms correctly, which proved to be much harder than he'd anticipated.
"You have to be able to use a spell when you do this." Kate had said.
So he'd begun to shoot random spells off, but usually the wand motion made it more difficult to move in a way that was natural enough to be fast. Harry got frustrated quickly, it normally didn't take him this long to get one of these moves.
"I just don't get it!" He exclaimed in frustration.
"Harry, you need to be more natural when you move your feet, these maneuvers are much more advanced than what most people can do, so the footwork, which I understand is different, is extremely important. Try again, use a disarming spell this time with the move." Kate soothed, "This time let the wand motion work with your momentum."
It was easier, with the disarming spell, but Harry wasn't sure if it was because he was good at the spell or because the wand movement actually went with the momentum of the rest of his body when he pivoted. Either way, it worked.
LATER THAT EVENING
Albus Dumbledore had known this year would be difficult. Between the return of Voldemort, the ministry, and having to minimize his contact with one of the few students who always knew something that he didn't, which would probably put him at a disadvantage against both of the others… well, he wasn't exactly set up for success. Of course, he knew something was bound to happen with Kate Ross this year as well, it was how things went with DADA professors, but that didn't mean that he hadn't felt bad. Kate was, after all, a fellow fighter against the dark around the world and a good person to boot. What he hadn't expected, however, was for Harry himself to be complicit in it. Whatever "it" was. Tonight's visit to their detention together told him that whatever it was most definitely had to do with the war and clearly, the two were rather close for two people who had only known each other for a few months. A little too close, in his opinion.
He hadn't missed the secret smiles the two had shared in the Great Hall over the weeks, nor the way Harry seemed to be Kate's biggest supporter amongst the students, a feat considering the Master Curse Breaker's popularity, and the way Kate herself seemed to encourage his company, even on her birthday, which had been celebrated with much more fanfare than he had ever seen be thrown a Professor's direction. Not that any of the staff had been in the slightest bit jealous...really Albus had been the only one who hadn't been bothered by it. Merlin knew the last thing he wanted to be reminded of was his age, no, what bothered him was how quickly Harry had trusted Kate, dangerously quick, considering they were at war and her motivations were yet unknown, for all he knew Voldemort had managed to recruit her, she was young enough to be gullible, not to mention that Drake Herr had probably not given her any reason to like he, Albus Dumbledore, very much.
Albus appreciated that he was at least partly to blame for Harry's sudden attachment to Kate, undoubtedly he felt he could only trust the new player. Albus had been the one to isolate him and that meant that he probably did not like Albus very much right now, or anyone who was associated with him in any way. Only in the very far reaches of his mind would he admit that he hoped very much that this was the only reason he was feeling like he was being replaced, or maybe that he had been a stand in for someone else, which apparently Kate could do much better than he. But that fear went unacknowledged.
He had committed to keeping a distance with Harry and if he would continue to do so, this was a consequence he would have to deal with. Harry would not rely on him anymore and he was better off unneeded by Harry, it would protect both of them. No, what was concerning was Kate. What exactly were her intentions? What did she want? What did she gain from training Harry personally? Was that the real reason why she had applied to be DADA teacher? Was she doing this for the American government? For her own influence over the boy-who-lived? Dare he wonder if she was working with Voldemort?
It seemed far-fetched and ridiculous but he'd dealt with more impossible scenarios before, Sirius was a perfect example of that. But duelling lessons-
...this, also, could be good for them. It changed things, that was for sure.
Harry would hopefully be more prepared to face Voldemort when he one day had to. He would be safer in the meantime, spending all his free time doing homework or learning how to duel with Kate Ross, no matter her motives….. right?
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