"Harry! Stop winding your brother up," Petunia chastised her son after overhearing Harry telling Elias that the true way he flew was by flapping his arms really fast, with Elias pointedly not amused by his jokes.

"If you're not going to tell me then I'll climb to the top of the Astronomy Tower next month and flap my arms on the way down, you'll be banned from my funeral," Elias commented sarcastically.

"It's not my fault I can move my arms like a hummingbird."

"You're a hummingbird now, son? Or would it be Lord Hummingbird?" Sirius joked as he walked in with today's paper.

"Hilarious, I truly don't know where you manage to pull such witty remarks from," Harry responded, sticking his tongue out to emphasise his point.

"You will simply never rise to my level of genius, Harry, you need to accept that."

"Do you know how to fly?" Harry teased.

"Of course, you get a broom and it takes off, usually with a wizard riding it."

"There you go, Elias. That's how you fly."

"Why won't you even just try to teach me?" Elias sounded genuinely upset at this point, making Harry realise he was going too far at this point.

"I honestly don't even know, I imagine it is a mixture of my Air Elemental ability combined with the Echani battle dance. As you're a Fire Elemental I don't think you could do it, though you may be able to use fire to raise yourself into the air like a Muggle rocket."

"Do you really think so?"

"Sure, I guess, not that I've really considered it much myself. I know Blaise has been experimenting with being able to travel using his Elemental abilities and he seems to think that it's possible. Maybe you can ask Derek what he thinks."

"Yeah, maybe. If you ever figure out a way to fly that doesn't involve Elemental stuff then let me know."

"Will do, little bro," Harry responded as the boy ran off to write a letter to Derek.

/_-_^_^_-/

Harry had trained with his sword daily, keeping it shrunken down on a chain around his neck most of the time, and had even been able to channel his air powers through the sword, allowing him to incapacitate someone without connecting the deadly blade.

Harry didn't only train to wield it as an offensive weapon, he knew that it could deflect spells by virtue of how reflective it was, and so he made sure to get Dudley and Elias to cast weak spells at him, taking advantage of the sheer complexity of the wards to mask their underage magic.

"Furnunculus, Stupify!" Elias sent at him.

"Rictusempra, Densaugeo!" Dudley came in without any time to lose, keeping Harry moving as they circled him and struck. The two boys had been told to be unpredictable, to really try to break past his defence. After fifteen minutes of failing to break through, Elias was becoming mildly frustrated, while Dudley was impressed at Harry's ability to hold out for so long.

Elias' frustration only rose with time, ending with him performing a grand series of flourishes with his wand while waving his other hand subtly and wandlessly disarming Harry.

"I've figured your technique out, you feel for the air currents that are disrupted with the movement of a wand, then deflect or parry based on the wand movements."

"When did you learn wandless magic?"

"Sirius has been teaching me, so has Regulus."

"I want wandless magic lessons," Harry pouted, shrinking his sword and heading to talk to his father and uncle about learning with them. Dudley and Elias remained and dulled each other in Harry's absence.

Harry made his way down to the living room to locate his father, his voice travelling to meet him as he descended the stairs.

"I understand, Albus, we shall spend the last three weeks of August away from Britain. Thank you for warning us."

"Think nothing of it, Sirius my boy, after all, your family matters to me, and any threat from Voldemort should be taken seriously. Farewell."

"What's going on? I didn't come down here expecting to hear about bad news," Harry questioned his father who was still looking into the fireplace.

"Regulus was attacked; he is alright and managed to escape, he hurt his attacker in the process. The thing that I can't forget is the fact that the one who attacked him is my cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange, and that she attended my wedding to Petunia under a glamour. The fact that she could have killed any one of you terrifies me."

"She could have killed you as well," Harry whispered.

"Well yes, that could have been a possibility as well, however, I thought it was implied."

"It's not the first time you've put our lives ahead of your own, as if your survival is merely an afterthought."

"No, Harry, don't think that. I promise you that I do in fact care about my own health and wellbeing."

"You better," Petunia cut in. "I didn't marry you for you to go out and get yourself killed. I've spoken to Elias and Dudley, they're packing some things so we can leave. Dudley offered to pack for you because we all know he is the fastest packer."

"What actually happened?"

"Bellatrix used the same glamour of an old lady to appear helpless and inconspicuous while she watched him, eventually culminating in her pretending to fall and hurt herself in an alleyway. Regulus went over to help her and upon reaching down to give her a hand up she attacked him, discarding the glamour and telling him that the Dark Lord would be looking for us. The thing that really gets me about this is the fact that she showed her face to him, a fact that may seem inconsequential, but points out to me that she was so certain that Reg wouldn't escape and so didn't mind him knowing it was her."

"What happened next?" Harry asked.

"She won't be taking part in any marathons any time soon, Reg made sure of that. After her initial attack broke his ribs, and almost killed him on the spot, he was able to draw his wand and retreat to cover. The scuffle had attracted the attention of the patrons of Diagon Alley and she was forced to put up a barrier between the crowd and their fight, at which point she bragged about our deaths and he responded by cutting off her leg with a powerful Diffindo, followed by a spell to prevent the regrowing of the limb via magical means. Understandably enraged, Bellatrix destroyed Reg's cover and then hit him with an unknown purple spell before vanishing entirely, well, minus a leg of course."

"Where is Uncle Reg?"

"He is in the same secure treatment center that you were in, a general precaution for patients under threat from the Dark Lord."

Dudley and Elias entered the room with bags packed for each of them, as well as for Harry, and they gathered around the same item that was used for their previous trip to France, a hideous scarf that Sirius had owned since he was a child. Without a word they vanished and reappeared in one of the Black Châteaus in the countryside of southern France, before then grabbing a secondary Portkey and reappearing in a villa in Monteriggioni to enjoy the rest of the summer.