I had a major breakthrough yesterday and so we have three new chapters beta read by our new reader 30KEWNE please enjoy all new content i admit i am pretty nervous.
Harry and Heather woke early the next morning filled with anticipation and dread. On one hand they were looking forward to learning new things about magic, they just wished it did not have to be with Dumbledore.
As they headed down to the great hall it was hard not to notice just how empty the castle was when it was summer. Every now and then a painting or ghost would give the pair a funny look as if questioning why they were still here, though none spoke up and asked.
The great hall itself was now empty of all tables except for a circular table that looked like it would seat the staff and the twins. The table looked tiny in the large open room; it looked almost out of place. In the far corner the hourglasses that held house points were once again empty.
At the table sat Dumbledore and Minerva the two were having a rather heated conversation and had not yet noticed they were no longer alone.
"Albus please they are just children they are too young to start preparing for a war that may not even come. You need to let them have a childhood away from this place"
Minerva's words were clearly falling on deaf ears however for Dumbledore chose that moment to fill his plate. It was a short while before Minerva got her response.
"Minerva I know you hold little respect for divination however Sybil's prediction is one we cannot ignore. We know Voldemort is seeking a way to return." At Voldemort's name Minerva shuddered, Dumbledore ignored this and continued.
"First his attempt at gaining the stone and then the diary this year, he will return and I'm sure of it and Harry and Heather must be ready. Think of all the lives that could be saved by preparing them early. It may not be the life anyone wanted for them but they will be saving countless lives"
Minerva sighed a long sigh she could see why he wanted the course of action he did but it just felt wrong to her to be training children into weapons was not something she ever wanted to do.
She rose to her feet and faced Dumbledore once more.
"I will not help you train MY wards to be weapons"
With this she started to leave and almost bumped into Heather. A look of shock flashed on Minerva's normally stoic face.
"I'm sorry you had to hear that but I do not regret I said it." As she said this she hugged her Wards and left the great hall.
Dumbledore to his credit looked completely none phased by this incident and waved his hand indicating them to sit down. The pair took seats opposite Dumbledore trying to stay as far away as they could.
"We will begin your lessons at Ten O'Clock and will be starting with some practical defence."
Harry and Heather shared a look of complete amazement.
"Looks like he is going to pretend that we didn't just hear that." Harry sent with a tone of disbelief.
"It would seem so think we should ask him?"
"Is there really any point? I don't think he would be honest with us even if we asked."
Heather silently agreed and chose to address Dumbledore trying to keep her dislike for the man out of her voice.
"Where are we going to be doing our lessons?"
"We will be holding lessons here in the great hall where there is plenty of space for anything we may need."
"Will you be our only teacher?" Harry asked as he started to pile his plate with food.
"For now at least yes it will be just the three of us. I may ask for Severus's help when we start advanced potions but that will not be for a very long time."
After that the meal became quiet with no one speaking, well no one speaking aloud. Harry and Heather were talking like normal and enjoying their breakfast completely shutting Dumbledore out.
Dumbledore not being a stupid man could tell they were talking among themselves and chose to watch rather than try to engage in conversation.
"Regaining their trust would be harder than I first thought." Dumbledore thought to himself.
Harry and Heather were the first to rise after eating and with a somewhat polite nod to Dumbledore they excused themselves and headed for a quick walk around the grounds.
As they left the castle the first thing Harry and Heather noticed was a pleasant chill in the air. As they walked further into the grounds the small frost that had gathered on the grass made satisfying crunching noises with each step they took.
The walk ended much sooner than either would have hoped but they did not want to be late to their first lesson especially since it was with the headmaster.
When they arrived back in the great hall a large duelling platform had been assembled in the centre. As they entered Dumbledore smiled and indicated they came close.
"Today we are going to start with a duel you two against me."
Harry looked at Heather with a small smile on his face.
"We get to fire spells at Dumbledore. I can't wait."
"We will no doubt get our buts kicked but i've wanted to hex him for some time now."
Harry laughed at Heather's response, making Dumbledore look at the question.
"First I will teach you the shielding spell. The incantation for this spell is Protego, the hand motion is an upward flick of the wand." He then pulled out his wand and gave a demonstration.
Eager to try it for themselves they pulled out their own wands and looked at Dumbledore for permission. Dumbledore's eyes twinkled watching the twins eagerness and nodded.
Heather looked at Harry and smiled. "You first?"
"Don't mind if i do." Harry responded grinning and he tried the charm.
In front of Harry formed a feeble looking barrier, it looked like a simple hex would destroy it. Harry looked a little disappointed and turned to see how Heather managed.
Heather smiled reassuringly to Harry before trying the spell herself.
Heather's shield did not look much better than Harry's and so for the next thirty minutes they worked on making the shields stronger.
After the half hour had passed Heather's shield had managed to block a stinging hex that Harry had delivered. In her delight she dropped the shield too soon and got hit with the tickling charm Harry had sent next.
Dumbledore lifted Harry's charm before speaking.
"I think we should see how well you do against me, See if you can disarm me before the lesson ends."
Harry and Heather moved onto the platform and readied their wands not particularly feeling confident but also excited to cast spells against the Headmaster. Dumbledore took his side radiating confidence and a cool composure.
The three bowed and the duel started. Dumbledore wasted no time in firing jinxes, not trusting the shields the twins chose to try to dodge the spellfire casting shields as a secondary action.
It did not take long for Harry and Heather to be disarmed or end up on the floor. They had many duels over the course of the next hour with none of their spells even coming close to breaking Dumbledore's shield.
When Dumbledore announced the last fight the twins decided to fight holding hands, this made dodging very hard but the spell power increase could easily be seen. For the first time in the hour Dumbledore stopped taking them lightly and observed the fight much more closely.
"You are better at shields so I will leave the defence to you. I'm going to go on the offensive."
Heather agreed and shouted "Protego" her shield burst forth from her wand in a bright gold.
Dumbledore seeing this sent multiple disarm spells at the barrier but it would not budge.
Harry seeing the shield so strong let off a barrage of his own jinxes, the new barrage of spells made Dumbledore stop attacking and put up his own shield. It was the longest fight of the day but Dumbledore having more experience managed to break the defence with a well aimed water spell.
Taken completely surprised by the water spell Heather's shield dropped only to have a disarm spell hit her, after that Dumbledore made light work of Harry.
"I have never seen a second year perform such strong spells when we get you trained you will be a force to reckon with. We just need to get that power when you're not holding hands."
Harry and Heather didn't think that was possible but did not argue his point instead sat down feeling pretty drained from the spell work.
Seeing how drained the pair was Dumbledore dismissed them for the day. Happy to be dismissed the pair left the great hall and headed for the library at Heather's request.
After a rather unsuccessful trip to the library they headed back to the great hall for dinner. It was hard not to find this experience awkward. In addition to Dumbledore most of the staff were gathered round the table, unfortunately Snape included.
The teachers would converse with each other talking about summer plans, how they were going unwind after the tragic events of the year or grades. They at times tried to include Harry and Heather but they must have been feeling slightly awkward for the conversations did not last long.
Dueling with Dumbledore continued daily for the next week starting with strengthening their shields and spell work. On top of their spellwork Dumbledore now had them running laps around the great hall before they started stating they needed to increase their stamina.
Sunday was their first day of rest and the twins had their first opportunity to sleep in. By the time they had awoken it was ten O'clock and they had missed breakfast. After getting ready for the day Harry and Heather entered their sitting room where they found some breakfast that must have been sent up and a rather dead looking owl laid on the table.
The owl looked somewhat familiar but neither could place where they had seen it before. Heather prodded the bird lightly. It looked up feebly. Harry picked up the bird and took it to Hedwig's perch so the feeble owl could take a drink.
Stripping the bird of its letter Harry sat next to Heather allowing her to feed him a bit of toast as he read the letter.
To Harry and Heather I hope that being stuck in the castle is not depressing you too much. How is the plan to leave? Did Tilly get you out?
My nightmares are still keeping me up most nights. Mum want's me to see a St Mungo specialist but I really don't want to. That is not why I am writing. Guess what? Dad won 700 Galleons. We are going to be visiting Bill in Egypt. I'm hoping that it will take my mind off Tom.
I hope you get away from Dumbledore and can enjoy your holiday too.
Ginny
P.s Please let Errol rest a while before sending him back. He is frail. Mom doesn't think he will last much longer and I have to agree.
"I hope we can be rid of this place soon. The lessons are fun and are helping us be better but I don't feel like being stuck with Dumbledore any longer than I have to." Harry said now tucking into some sausage that was a little cold but still tasted good.
"I know what you mean. The only good thing I can see about being here is the library though it hasn't really helped find out anything further."
"It's hard to believe that there is no record of the sword if not the necklace if it really was Merlin's." Harry responded.
"Maybe we should get the necklace when we get out of here."
As Heather voiced her opinion she grabbed some parchment and sent her reply to Ginny letting her know the plan failed but they were both happy for the Weasley family who deserved the money.
By the end of the next week Dumbledore's lessons had progressed from simple jinxes to stunners. While Harry could perform this jinx pretty easily it lacked the power it needed to actually knock out the Headmaster.
Heather on the other hand was struggling to perform the jinx. This led to some frustration on the second day.
"How come I cannot cast this spell? I was doing well with the shields." She had commented angrily.
"You will get it. I suppose not every spell comes easily, keep trying." Harry sent trying to reassure her. This did little to ease Heather's annoyance and so instead Harry sent her what he was doing to perform the jinx.
While this went further in helping it still took Heather another few days before she could cast the spell every time. By this point Harry was starting to have some power and Dumbledore asked Professor Flitwick to help in their training.
The reason for this was he did not think it a good idea for a Bonded pair to be shooting spells at each other and if they managed to knock Dumbledore out he would need someone who could cast the counter on stand by.
This proved a good idea because on the third day Harry succeeded in stunning the old professor. Flitwick was quick to revive Dumbledore.
While Harry was quite good at casting the spell now and Heather was slowly catching up they had yet to beat Dumbledore in a duel. He had instructed the Twins they could not hold hands and duel until they had become more proficient in fighting this meant that they struggled to get past Dumbledore's shield.
About a month had passed and they had progressed onto transfiguration Professor McGonagall was still adamant that she would not help Dumbledore. She had apologised to Harry and Heather for this. On the one hand helping would ensure Minerva could see her wards more but doing so would mean helping Dumbledore turn the children into weapons and morally this was not something she felt she could do.
As June turned into July Harry and Heather were becoming increasingly annoyed they knew they were being followed as they walked around Hogwarts. The past few times as they tried to share intimate kisses or long hugs weird stuff would happen around them.
They had been relaxing by the lake under a large oak tree they had found sharing a few kisses while reading a charms textbook Heather was currently interested in. While kissing a branch had whipped Harry in the back it had not been hard per se but it certainly scared the boy half to death.
Another time they had been sitting in the clock tower courtyard and a large pile of snow had fallen on them though it had not snowed in months. During this time Heather swore she saw what looked like elf ears disappearing round the corner. When they had looked no elf could be seen and they had not heard the crack that signified an elf's dissaperation.
Many strange events followed, having had more than enough the twins started planning to entrap the elf they believed to be behind this. They spent the best part of the next week's free time with their heads in spell books looking for a way to trap the elf.
By Sunday they had their plan but to finalise they would need the help of a teacher and they knew just who to ask. Approaching Minerva's room Harry and Heather knocked and waited; it did not take long for them to be invited in.
"We need your help. We believe that Dumbledore has us tailed by a House Elf." Harry said in a quiet voice in case the elf was close by.
"How do you intend to stop that? House Elfs can be especially tricky."
Heather gave Minerva a mischievous smile and started to inform her of their plan. This took a little longer than they would have like Minerva kept interrupting them with questions and doubts.
Once her doubts had been put to rest, as best they could, she asked.
"And how can I help you? You seem to have this well thought out already."
"Well you see we need to practise the Rennervate spell and Dumbledore does not think it a good idea to hex your bond mate. We were hoping you would agree to let us practise on you?"
Whatever Minerva was expecting Harry to say it was not that.
"While I said I would help if I could this is really dangerous. If you are unable to perform this spell you would need to inform another teacher and I'm pretty sure questions would be raised as to why I was letting you stun me."
Harry and Heather visibly paled in all of their thinking this had not quite crossed their mind.
"I wonder why bond mates should not stun each other." Heather asked, thinking out loud rather than expecting an answer.
"I cannot say, it has been so long since we have seen a bonded pair and I don't know of any pair bonded as tightly as you two." Was Minerva's response.
"Maybe we should try?" Harry asked, his curiosity growing.
"While I agree that it would get us faster results if Dumbledore thinks it unwise perhaps we should not as much I do not like the man he does know his stuff more often than not."
The twins looked put out by this but agreed.
"I have an idea. I know someone who is not exactly sympathetic to Albus's way of thinking and if you agree I think we should bring them into our little group. I am sure they would help. I would need to ask them though."
At this Heather and Harry had a fast and silent argument. Heather wanted to trust Minerva's contact with Harry unsure. Heather won and they agreed.
"Meet me back here tonight say Seven O'clock walk under your dad's cloak hopefully the elf won't know you came back. I will go and speak to our friend."