"Perhaps you'll make me move," Harry chuckled as Katerina threw several bludgeoning curses at him. Waving his wand in several fluid motions, the spells harmlessly whizzed by him, knocked slightly off target by his compression of the air.
"How do you do that?" she demanded while casting more spells. He continued shielding and deflecting lazily.
"Magic tries to find the path of least resistance, by reducing the density of the air in certain areas I can effectively guide it to where I want," he lectured, taking her next spell and bending it until it orbited around him for several rotations before whizzing back towards Katerina, who, having been enthralled by the sight, yelped as she threw herself out of the way. "Do pay attention, dear."
A low growl escaping her throat, she threw a cleaving curse, followed by a blood boiler, a whipping spell and a warhammer curse. To her shock, he lazily shielded against all of them, the warhammer curse impacting with a loud crunch and kicking up dust, but Harry's shield showing no damage.
"Come now, I know you can do better than that," Harry chided, flinging several stinging spells at her. They accelerated beyond normal speeds, again a trick with compression of the air, causing all of them to land with efficient precision. She rubbed her cheek annoyedly. "Pouting is unbefitting of you, Kat. You don't look cute enough like Sarah to do that."
"You jerk!" she cursed, with renewed vigour casting a large variety of dark spells, though to her increasing fatigue and frustration he continued lazily shielding against them, not having moved a single step for the entire duration of their duel.
"Avis," he conjured lazily, three dozen birds emerging from thin air and fanning out, diving at her from several directions. She took down half a dozen with a well placed slashing curse, but failed to roll out of the way in time to avoid a metallic talon clawing the side of her cheek, its beak pecking her head repeatedly.
Angrily, she twirled, throwing off the bird before lashing out with an arc of the withering curse, the black pulse destroying the constructs around her and allowing Katerina to suck in several desperate breaths in a bid to recover before Harry launched his next attack.
"Isn't your speciality in energy magic?" she questioned. It was a poor attempt to stall, but with an amused smile that flustered Katerina, Harry answered nevertheless.
"It is, I've tried to master the six known elements. While energy is my favoured form, that does not mean I am adept to others. Air, Water, Fire, Energy, Earth and Void, among the known ones."
"Known ones?"
"How astute of you. Yes, I believe there remains a seventh core element yet undiscovered. Some believe it to be metal, yet if you look at the armithic breakdown that's actually a sub-branch of Earth."
"But I thought there were three pairs of two," Katerina frowned while throwing several spells at him in hopes of catching Harry off guard. He looked amused at the attempt, lazily redirecting them.
"Most would content themselves to believe such. Air opposed to Earth, Water against Fire, Energy against Void. Yet they are not perfect opposites, there are slight shifts that imply the presence of a final element. What it could be, I cannot say. Blood perhaps, or soul magic. Anything is possible," he shrugged, "But enough on that, let's see some actual effort from you, Kat."
"Cricifigo, stagno, hirudo, rumpo!" Katerina cast in quick succession. Harry shielded the first three spells, but was forced to roll aside to avoid the fourth after it slipped straight through his shield. Harry blinked twice, firing several blasting curses to force her back on the defensive.
Yet, instead, she flicked her wand, sending several gusts of air that narrowly redirected the spells, as they suddenly began orbiting around her like moons, the energy from the spell slowly dissipating due to the integrity degradation. He observed the spells begin accelerating until they were a blur around her even by his trained eyes, before suddenly hurtling towards him.
Lazily, he redirected the spells away, but this had allowed Katerina to regain the initiative, and she cast several more spells. This time, he flicked his wand, concentrating and forcibly exerting his will on the spells, redirecting them towards Katerina and forcing her to throw herself to the side and avoid them.
She sent several conjured knives at him, which he dispelled with ease, retaliating with a lasso made of energy, lashing out and threatening to slice off her arm. She gracefully twirled outside his whip's range, but Harry focused his energy, and it became a magical construct similar to fiendfyre, made out of pure energy as it reared up before striking at Katerina, who desperately raised a shield.
"That's enough, I think," Harry commented, dispelling the construct. He could see Katerina was sweating all across her body, and sporting a multitude of cuts and burns. While he was relatively untouched, Harry found himself having exerted quite a bit of energy nevertheless. "A very impressive spell selection."
"Thank...my father...he's been training me a lot lately," she wheezed, waving her wand to heal some of the more serious injuries she sustained. Harry cast a wind charm, basking her in a cool breeze and removing some of the sweat. "Several of those were family spells."
"I could tell," Harry nodded. "Your casting has certainly improved. That chain...explain it to me."
"Crucifixion spell, advanced petrification spell, draining spell and soul echoing spell," she answered succinctly. "Quite the nasty things if they manage to land."
"I was admittedly more fascinated by the wand movements," Harry chuckled. "It's very rare for a chain to get more complicated rather than less."
"Is that a bad thing?"
"Not necessarily, just...unorthodox. It'll take immense concentration to maintain while in combat, but seeing the fluid wand movements you brought I have no doubt you've been drilling in that," he noted thoughtfully. "Just how much have you been training?"
"Not enough to overcome your defenses, it seems," she sighed. Harry shook his head in amusement. "You're pants at the dark arts, how did you manage to do that?"
"You'll find, while there's value in diversity, mastering a few spells is often better than being adequate at many," Harry chuckled. "A lesser opponent, likely would have been felled. Ready to do some two on two duelling?"
"I thought you'd never ask," she beamed, as Harry conjured several training dummies around them.
-Break-
"Captain Potter," a voice greeted as James and his team of six aurors landed into the international portkey terminal of Paris. Shaking off the slight queasiness he felt, he smiled, shaking the hand of the french auror captain firmly.
"Captain Dupont, a pleasure. Allow me to introduce my team, aurors Proudfoot, Dawlish, Savage, Williamsons and Shacklebolt."
"Excellent, follow me," Dupont instructed, leading the six British aurors through the terminal through a side-channel and through a floo terminal taking them to the ministry of magic. It was far more ostentatious than the rather drab British ministry, with large glass chandeliers, quartz pillars shouldering a renaissance style ceiling and sparkling marble floors.
They walked through several security checkpoints, where he showed his badge, causing the guards to wave the group through, until they arrived at a large conference room. Entering, they were greeted by the sight of the French minister of security, Felix Delacour.
"Ah, excellent. Thank you, captain, you may resume your duties," Delacour instructed smoothly. The French captain saluted stiffly before leaving the room. "Sit, sit, I presume you haven't been briefed yet?"
"Only in broad strokes," James confirmed as the six men took seats around the conference table. "We were told you would be able to provide a more comprehensive overview."
"Indeed," Delacour nodded. "To put it briefly, we're running short of hands with the need to conduct raids on known Grindelwald sympathisers, protect various key targets and break up pro-Grindelwald rallies, we're constantly running short on responders despite double shifts for all personnel."
"What about the ICW presence?"
"War mage Ada Vanner and one of her aides' corpses were portkeyed into the atrium of the ministry...needless to say the situation...devolved," Delacour sighed, rubbing his forehead tiredly. "The incident has been...hushed up, but for a war mage to be defeated...there is no doubt this was the work of Grindelwald."
"So you're trapped between not covering all your bases or spreading your forces wide enough to be easily picked off," James observed, to which Delacour stiffly nodded. "And that's where we come in?"
"Yes. You'll each be partnered with a French auror. They will have more details on individual assignments. As more experienced individuals in our field, most of your work will be conducting raids on known Grindelwald sympathisers. While we believe Grindelwald is currently near Marseille, there remains a possibility you might be faced with him, in which case, I must advise you to retreat and call for reinforcements."
"Sur-"
"Thank you for the warning, mister Delacour," James inclined his head, sending a pointed glare to Dawlish. The man thankfully shut his mouth, even if his cheeks flushed in irritation.
"Of course, let me show you to your desks, your partners will be waiting."
-Break-
"Interesting...most interesting," professor Tomak appraised as he walked around the circle, scrutinising every single rune carefully. There were seven rings, each a honeycomb pattern. Each layer was bridged to its adjacent ones by seven pillars that straddled all seven rings. Twenty one sacrificial circles dotted the edge of the outer ring. "Tell me about this cluster."
"A modified willowcove subwork, designed to smoothen the channels and reduce the inefficiency."
"And this cluster?"
"A mesh of several existing rune branches to prevent magical backflow. Again it reduces the inefficiency, as well as the risk of failure."
"And these?"
"How to describe...imagine a gust of wind pushing a bird in a certain direction. Magic in this system is the bird in my analogy, it is essentially boosted, speeding up the process."
"I see...and finally, these clusters?"
"Ah, one of my own creations. They absorb the ambient magic around and store them, ready to discharge to account for inefficiencies in the system. They require some calibration, but make it far easier to match theoretical calculation to actual yields."
"Ingenious," the professor complimented. "I can see no obvious mistakes. Are you prepared to test it?"
"Of course," Harry smiled, placing a diamond the size of his fist in the middle and twenty one different gemstones in the orbiting sacrificial circles. With a flick of his wand, he channeled magic into the ignition rune, and the platinum lines glowed, spreading across the circle as it accelerated from one part to the next, slowly coiling around the central circle and tightening.
Within a minute, the entire alchemical circle was glowing brilliantly, and the twenty one gemstones began to dissolve with hisses while the diamond in the middle began to glow a multitude of colours brilliantly. Tomak watched fascinated, jotting down notes hastily while his eyes darted around.
"Looks promising...looks promising indeed," he muttered with a satisfied drawl. "Definitely faster than usual...I wonder…"
The orbiting gemstones finally dissolved into nothing, the magic in them having been dissected and taken into the circuits of the alchemical circle, slowly worming inwards as they were channeled into the diamond, which let out a low, musical hum that filled the room as it glowed brilliantly, phasing through several different colours a second as it grew and grew. First until it was the size of four fists placed together, then to the size of a football, then finally to the size of a small child, somehow maintaining its perfect icosahedral shape.
As the glow of the ritual died down after several minutes, Harry stepped forward inside the circle, retrieving the large gemstone by hugging it to his body. It was nearly transparent, yet at different angles often had hints of a multi-colour glow to it. He handed it to the professor, who gingerly inspected it, before quickly passing it back to Harry.
"A most impressive piece of work, mister White," Tomak complimented. "Though I must wonder why you have such a fascination with gemstones. I find young males are often more enthralled by weapons such as swords, spears and shields. I heard that someone once enchanted a muggle rifle, so powerful that a single shot could level a city, and bewitched to never miss."
"I admittedly have a growing fascination with wards. My old wardstone broke, hopefully I'll be able to prevent it with this new one."
"That gemstone broke? How in Merlin's beard did you put so much strain on it?" the professor asked incredulously. "That...that stone was easily...never mind, I don't think I want to know."
"I am aware some modifications would need to be made if I wished to specialise in other items, but I do believe that the current circle is sufficient to bless a sword, for instance, even if it would be slightly inefficient."
"Let us try then," Tomak chuckled, pulling out a blade from his waist. He handed it to Harry, who inspected it carefully.
"Dwarven steel," he breathed out in awe, looking at the professor in incredulity. "How?"
"A story for another time. Let us see what we can do with such a blade, no?" he chuckled, taking the weapon and placing it at the centre. Harry quickly retrieved several dozen gold bars from a trunk at the edge of the room, to which Tomak raised a curious eyebrow.
"Growing gemstones is really profitable, it's been funding my experiments," Harry shrugged. In total, he had one hundred and eighty nine gold bars divided between the twenty one sacrificial circles. With bated breath, he shot a bolt of magic at the ignition runework, which caused magic to begin spreading as the gold bars began to melt, five distinct bars moulding into one molten slump as the material was slowly consumed by the circle and energy was channeled towards the blade at the centre.
Several moments passed, both professor and student watching in anticipation at whether the blade would accept the magic. Seconds ticked by, and the glow of the circuit grew closer and closer, until finally, it began pumping directly into the blade, which began to thrum, as though someone was continually hitting a tuning fork.
The sound was not unpleasant, and both let out sighs of relief as the blade began to glow with magic. By now, the piles of gold had been half consumed, and both merely waited for another half an hour until the circuit stopped glowing, the backlog of magic having been channeled through. The blade's glow slowly faded, returning to normal, even as it radiated power. Carefully, Harry stepped to the middle and took the blade up, immediately feeling a sense of confidence and strength wash over him.
He took the blade and handed it to the professor, who accepted with both his hands, wielding the blade. Clearly, the effects were even more pronounced, seeing as he looked a full five years younger with the shift in posture and facial expression.
"Brilliant," Tomak breathed in awe, before presenting the blade back to Harry. "Take it, Harry, a present from master to student, as tradition dictates."
"I am honoured," Harry bowed, accepting the blade carefully.
"Every alchemist must have their own blade, it is tradition that it be bestowed from master to student upon completion of their studies. Caliburn has served me well, what shall you name yours?"
"It shall be named...Curtana," he breathed out, instinctually feeling the name was right with the slight tingle the sword channeled through his body. Tomak nodded, pleased.
"A fitting name. I have nothing more to teach you in the realm of alchemy, but if you wish to learn some tricks of the blade, my door will be open to you."
"An offer I will take up," Harry assured.
-Break-
"Sloppy!" Sarah berated, flinging several curses at the faint outline of an individual, whose disillusionment dropped upon contact with the first spell. "Stealth is the name of the game. Learn to use it!"
They were in a large room filled with tall and dense forest, along with grass and shrubbery at the bottom. Spying several imprints, her eyes traced them to behind a rock, at which she sent a blasting curse, causing the agent in question to leap out of cover, her disillusionment lost in the hectic movement.
"Are you really useless enough not to think to cover your footprints?" Sarah snapped. The girl merely ducked her head, cheeks red in shame as she hurried to the edge of the room along with other agents who Sarah had already spotted.
Sarah's eyes darted around, looking for the slightest hint of something out of place. It was, of course, difficult in the dense vegetation to make out much. But she had been trained, and trained well at that. Walking several steps forward, she saw a broken twig, and picked it up, inspecting it.
Seeing there was little damage besides at the end, Sarah deduced that it was freshly broken, and looked up, sighing at the faint outline of another one of her agents standing on a tree. Firing a blasting curse straight upwards, she observed the outline fail to leap to another branch, falling to the ground with a sickening crunch and a scream of pain. Sighing, she yelled, "Medic!"
Two of the neutrals' healing students moved forward, levitating the now revealed agent out to the side to begin casting healing spells on her crippled legs. Hopefully Harry wouldn't lecture her on pushing these agents too far, though after the demonstration she had with Wiklim last time, she doubted any would dare snitch.
"Right, the rest of you pass," she announced, and soon, three agents emerged, two from the treetops and one from a small mound they had buried themselves under. Sarah admitted she was impressed by the latter. "Well done to the three of you."
Leading them back to the debriefing area, she scowled at the sight of the eighteen other agents sitting on the circular benches. "Right, people, that was a bloody disaster. What went wrong?"
"We weren't adept at using the terrain to our advantage," one of the boys called out. She nodded.
"What else?"
"We weren't careful enough," another voiced out.
"One more...nobody? You need to think like your enemy. Where will they look? What will they look for? How can I misdirect them? Did any of you think to leave false trails? Create sounds and scents in other places you didn't hide? Did any of you try to shift your place, to constantly maintain an advantageous position over me? Not one of you did!"
All the agents present had their heads ducked in shame.
"Your greatest weapon will always be your mind and your training. The missions you will be sent on range from intelligence gathering, to assassinations, to protection. You need to learn to blend in, be it in a crowd, in a top secret enemy facility, or out in the wilderness. The enemy will always adapt, and thus you must as well. Am I understood?"
"Yes ma'am," the agents chorused.
"Then let's rerun this again!" she barked. "Move it!"
-Break-
"You have to come, Rose," Susan whined, tugging at the side of Rose's robes. The latter rolled her eyes at the antics of the former. "It's quidditch! How can you want to miss it?"
"It's so...boring," Rose shrugged. "I much prefer my books."
"Nerd," Susan poked her side playfully, which caused Rose to squeal.
"Oh you did not just do that!" Rose glared at the red haired girl, who merely stuck her tongue out. Leaping upwards, she pounced, sending them both tumbling to the floor as Rose began mercilessly tickling Susan.
"O-o-ha-stop-Ro-Rose-plea-I'm-sorry!" Susan choked out while desperately trying to push Rose away. With a satisfied hum, she gracefully stood up, picking up her book and placing it carefully on her bed. "Seriously though, it's Griffyndor against Slytherin, I heard those matches are always the best! Just come, at least once! If you don't like it I'll never bring it up again."
"Fine," Rose sighed, watching amusedly as Susan punched the air in triumph before grabbing her hand and leading her out of their dorm and towards the common room. "What's the hurry?"
"We need to get there before all the good seats are taken," Susan insisted, dragging her as the two first years hastened through the hallways of Hogwarts, arriving at the Hufflepuff stands. Climbing the tower, they managed to secure two seats near the front.
"Welcome everybody, I'm Lee Jordan, and today I'll be commenting on the first Quidditch game of the season! The players have just risen into the air, and the snitch has been released! And they're off. Angelina Johnson has the quaffle, an excellent chaser and rather excellent looking too-"
"Jordan!" Mcgonagall's outraged voice interrupted. Several laughs were heard from the Gryffindor stand.
"Sorry professor," Jordan responded, not sounding very apologetic at all. "Anyways, Johnson passes to Spinnet...passes back to Johnson...to Bell, no that was a feint, back to Johnson...and she scores! Griffyndor leads ten to nil!"
The students clad in red and gold burst to their feet, cheering. Rose clapped along politely, watching as the Slytherin chasers now pushed forward, trying to score as well. The boy with the quaffle hurled it to another, but it was intercepted mid-throw by one of the Gryffindor chasers, who made a mad dash towards the unprepared Slytherin keeper. Feinting left, she hurled the quaffle straight through the right hoop, and scored, causing cheers to erupt from the Griffyndors."
"Twenty to nil Gryffindor! The team is really killing it," Jordan yelled in the microphone excitedly. "Pucey has the quaffle, now Flint...Bell tries to intercept, is knocked off! Foul!"
A whistle sounded from Hooch, signalling a foul. Johnson lined up her shot, and threw it, but the Slytherin keeper Bletchley intercepted, hurling it back to Flint. Groans could be heard from the Gryffindors even as the Slytherins rose and provided a standing ovation for the save.
"And back to-what's this? It seems that Higgs has seen the snitch! Locke follows...slowly catching up...and...a bludger from Weasley knocks Higgs out of the way...and both seekers have lost the snitch. Meanwhile, Slytherin has managed to score, twenty to ten Griffyndor, come on girls!"
One of the Griffyndor chasers flipped the bird, to which Jordan merely chuckled. "Anytime baby-"
"Jordan!"
"She star-"
"If you-"
"Alright, alright...anyways, the Griffyndor chasers are killing it. And...goal! Fourty to ten!"
"This is kinda boring," Rose sighed, playing with her hair. Susan looked to her incredulously.
"How can you say that?"
"It's six kids throwing a ball, four kids whacking another and two kids chasing one, there's not much interesting here," Rose shrugged.
"Bu-b-b-" Susan sputtered.
"And Higgs pulls into a dive...Locke follows...and Higgs has caught the snitch," Jordan lamented. Cheers from the Slytherin stand erupted, while the Gryffindors groaned in disappointment. "The match ends one sixty to fifty to Slytherin. We'll get 'em next time."
Author note:
We get to see a bit of Sarah in leadership training the agents who will form the core of Harry's future army. Many of those who choose to follow are simply neutrals who felt they've been mistreated for a long time by the preservationists and/or the reformists. Because they were caught in the middle, they were often harrassed and bullied. This was hinted slightly with 'moderates' defecting to the neutrals in the guild assembly. While not all are going to worship Harry instantly, he's definitely gained a sort of cult following with some individuals, who in addition to taking lead of the neutrals, also has academic achievements to his name, charisma and raw magical power. Of the school, Harry can probably count on three hundred being very loyal supporters of him, in that they believe in the ideology of armed neutrality, rationality etc. There are obvious allusions to the SA under Hitler prior to his rise to the chancellorship. Of these, Harry has handpicked individuals with extraordinary talent and loyalty for specialsit training that Sarah leads. Remember, that Harry has trained for years in the Union, and imparted much of the lessons learnt to Sarah. Sarah has also spent a summer learning from Jade, an expert in the field who orchestrated the rise of her father through unscrupulous tactics. They have years to go before becoming a deadly force, but that's why I'm introducing them now, so we can watch it slowly evolve. The more observant of you might be wondering about the 'nearly one thousand' followers mentioned in a prior chapter. This is not a mistake or a contradiction, keep in mind that not all individuals are capable or willing to fight under Harry. This is why he only handpicks certain individuals to recieve 'advanced training'. I know there are those of you who won't like these additions, but the reality is, against the titans of Voldemort, Grindelwald and Dumbledore, Harry needs to have some muscle under him. Is it a stretch? Possibly, but considering canonically Voldemort's original Death Eaters also went to school with Riddle during his rise, this is just a logical progression of that, given Harry is far more capable than Voldemort at the same age.
In terms of lessons, I will say there's a reason I've been holding out on certain subjects while focusing on others. If you remember, at the start, I worked to establish the basic concepts of occlumency and legilimency, which then became vital parts of the story. I'm doing similar things with alchemy, which has been a heavy focus, of the story, but now that the setup is complete, I'm definitely going to be reallocating more time to exploring other classes. The thing is, depending on how I arrange the next few chapters, I might not have time to include lessons, which is why alchemy just needs to be finished. Hopefully you found the concepts explored enjoyable, I've definitely tried to tie in multiple subjects to highlight how Harry's excellence in different subjects are interwoven.