A/N: Hope you guys enjoy. This is book one of four! My first ever attempt at writing so opinions are welcome, good or bad! Three chapters here for you. Please review if you have a spare few minutes, the feedback will be much appreciated!
I own nothing in this story but the plot.
Edit:I've just noticed some of the styling is broken, probably from uploading from my phone. Next time I'm at a computer I'll fix it! Sorry all.
Prologue
"Expelliarmus"
"Avada Kedavra"
Harry felt a great feeling of relief as he saw the life leave Tom Riddle's eyes; replaced immediately by a sense of guilt. Dozens of people dead, hundreds injured, all in his name. Burying this emotion for now, he turned as the silence broke over the crowd and they rushed towards him.
Harry scanned the crowd, looking out for the pair of brown eyes he wanted to see most. He found her standing with Ron and Hermione, the only ones not rushing towards him. In their body language he could see the same relief he felt in himself. It was finally over. They could finally live their lives.
Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny spent the night in the Gryffindor dormitories that night, feeling far too exhausted to talk very much. On one side of the room Ron was helping Hermione into one of the four poster beds. Glancing towards the door he noticed Ginny standing awkwardly, as if unsure where she should be sleeping. Smiling in spite of himself, Harry moved over on his bed, and nodded for Ginny to join him, laughing as she almost jumped the whole room to be with him.
"No funny business, you pair," he heard Ron call from the other side of the room.
Harry snorted, turning his back to Ron and putting his arm around the love of his life, savouring the moment. This was the first time he could remember not having a lingering feeling of tension and worry floating around him. For the first time he felt content to just lie here and cuddle his girlfriend.
Chapter 1 - Induction Day
"Seriously now, will you pack that in? You're making me more nervous than I should be"
"Sorry"
Harry Potter was sat next to his best friend Ron Weasley, gradually getting more and more irritated as his friend bobbed his leg up and down.
"Just stop worrying, you'll do fine"
They were both sat outside an office at the Ministry of Magic, waiting for an interview about joining the training to be an Auror. Kingsley Shacklebolt, the Minister for Magic himself, had assured them that the interview was just a formality; that after their feats during the war against Voldemort, the only way they would not get taken on was if they misspelled their names.
A year had passed since Harry had defeated Voldemort. The professors had worked tirelessly reconstructing Hogwarts, with the assistance of various witches and wizards, so that by September first, Harry and his friends had all returned to complete their seventh year of schooling before joining the real world.
Harry had enjoyed his final year at Hogwarts immensely. Grinning to himself, he remembered how nice it was being able to read in the library without someone trying to kill him. He had enjoyed sneaking about the castle, playing Quidditch and even stressing about his exam results. Leaving with an amazing set of N.E.W.T's, he was now here at the Ministry, hoping to join the ranks of the Auror's and become one of the elites who defended the wizarding world from threats.
"Harry Potter?"
Harry glanced up to see Henry Friar, the new head Auror, motioning for him to enter the office. With a last grin at Ron, Harry got up and followed him in, wiping his sweaty hands before the inevitable hand shake.
Henry Friar was a tall and impressive character. Broad shouldered with large muscles and a crew cut, he gave off the impression of authority, but Harry could see a kind nature in his dark brown eyes.
"Henry Friar, head Auror, it's nice to finally meet you in person, Mr. Potter," he said, moving behind his desk and raising his hand to shake Harry's. "Please, have a seat. No need to look so nervous, Mr. Potter, this is more of an induction than an interview, someone probably should of said."
Harry visibly relaxed at this news, joining in with Henry's laugh. An induction? This should be interesting.
"Now, all I'm going to do today is run you through your training courses, and introduce you to your trainer for the next three years. My co-worker is doing the same for your friend, Mr. Weasley, right now," after shifting some papers around he looked directly at Harry. "The wizarding world will forever be in your debt, Harry, but I'm afraid favouritism won't be shown here. The next three years will be the toughest studying of your life."
"I understand, sir."
"Good. Ah ..." He stood up as the door opened and a woman came striding into the room. About a head shorter than Harry, she was fairly short and slender, with brown eyes and peroxide blonde hair pulled back into a pony tail. "Harry, this is your trainer, Alexandria Flint. Alex, meet Harry Potter."
"I think I've heard of you!" she said with a giggle, accepting his hand shake. "I look forward to starting your training."
"It's nice to meet you, Alexandria," said Harry.
"Please, Alex is fine," she said giving Harry a large smile.
"Well now that's out of the way, care to help me run him through the courses?" asked Henry.
"Sure thing, where do you want to start? The beginning?" asked Alex innocently. Harry laughed as Henry rolled his eyes at her, subconsciously moving to the edge of his seat to listen to the explanation of his courses.
"Right, first things first," started Henry. "I'd like to let you know that you are the first year of potential Auror's to take on the new training course. After the downfall of You-Know-Who, the Auror office decided we needed a more secret and intense training course for our staff. We felt the Death Eaters always had an advantage over us, using Dark Magic that the Ministry would never use on another human being. The Minister gave the green light for new divisions to be set up in the Department of Mysteries. So now, we have a new training course put in place for future Auror's. Alex?"
"This next year" Alex said, taking over from Henry, "will be split into four subjects: Advanced Duelling, Defensive and Offensive Magic, Working with Enchanted Gear and Work Placement. With the exception of enchanted gear, I'm sure you can figure out what's in the courses. Some time today I'll take you for a duel, see what I'm working with," she said with a mischievous grin.
"Sounds good," said Harry, feeling a little nervous.
"All that's left to do then, Mr. Potter, is show you around," said Henry. "There's some paperwork you need to get done for ministry files, but you can get that done in between courses. Unless you have any questions, I'll leave you in the hands of Alexandria to show you around and get started."
"No, no questions, sir," said Harry.
"This way then, Harry," said Alex frowning at the use of her full name and pointing back to the door. She stepped in front of the door, placed her hand onto a red circle next to it and said "Auror Offices." Once the circle had turned green she opened the door, not to the waiting area he had entered from, but to a large room filled with office cubicles.
Harry stopped short, taking in his surroundings. The far wall was taken up with floor to ceiling windows, enchanted to show a busy, Muggle London. Around the other walls was a set of private offices, for the higher ups, Harry assumed, although the doors were open and the offices appeared empty. The central floor space was made up of dividing walls you could see over if you stood up. Harry glanced inside the closest one as they started to walk through the pathways made up by the dividers, seeing a wizard pouring over a file. One wall was taken up with what seemed to be his family and a few medals, while the other was taken up by news paper clippings. Harry just glimpsed the name "Jordan ..." before he walked passed the cubicle.
"Here's yours," said Alex after they rounded a corner. They had entered a set of four empty cubicles with a section of the walls lowered inside so the occupants could communicate. "Your team will take up these cubicles. Originally Auror's worked as partners but they decided bigger teams would be better."
"How many will be in the team?" asked Harry.
"Four," replied Alex, "You'll all work and train under me for a while before you're left to fend for yourselves. You'll meet them all tomorrow. I have another induction to do today, and my partner is doing your friend Ron's."
"So I'll be working with Ron?" asked Harry, failing to control his excitement.
"Yes you will," laughed Alex, "There's also a girl your age, coming in straight from Hogwarts too, called Rebecca Riley. Do you know her?"
"Vaguely," said Harry, "she was in my year when I did my seventh year but, we never really spoke. A Ravenclaw, I think?".
"Yeah, I think so," said Alex, "There's a guy called John Cleric who's joining a few years late. The four of you will be working and training together."
"Right, I need to leave you for an hour to run an errand. Use the time for what you want. I'll be back!"
Alex waved to Harry as she entered her office and closed the door. Harry looked round his empty cubicle and smiled. His very own work space. Thinking back to the cubicle he looked in to, Harry waved his wand and his favourite photo of him and Ginny appeared. Resting it against the wall Harry dropped into his chair and grabbed a quill, deciding to use the time to make a start on the paper work.
As Harry filled in his name and date of birth, his mind started to drift to the sorts of things he was going to learn this year. He had to admit, Enchanted Gear sounded the most intriguing. The only thing he could think of in relation to it was the shield hats Fred and George had invented. But surely not, he thought to himself.
True to her word, Alex came out of her office an hour after she left. Harry had finished the paper work and placed it in his outbox with Henry's name on top.
"Sorry about that, Harry." said Alex as she sat on the desk opposite him. "There's a lot going on recently with Muggle's. Right, so, do you fancy a duel?"
Harry took the quick change of subject as a 'Don't ask'. "Sure." He said.
"Come with me then. We'll use the old training rooms for now, I'll take you to the department of mysteries later on" Alex said, standing up and moving to a door Harry assumed led to a corridor. What he didn't expect was the door to open on to a large, empty hall. "We don't use these any more" said Alex, her voice reverberating around the room, "but it seemed easier to come here first. All I'm doing is getting an idea of how much work you need. I want you to try disarm, stun or incapacitate me in anyway. Don't worry about the room, it will fix itself." Suddenly her tone became more serious, loosing its kind quality Harry hadn't noticed until it wasn't there. "Take out your wand, Potter, and ready yourself. Ready? Let's see what you can do."
Alex moved so fast Harry barely had time to pull out his wand and raise a shield as her first stunner came hurling towards him. She was heavily on the offence, throwing stunner after after stunner at him. Each time he only just managed to cast a shield charm before the next spell came. Needing an opening, Harry leapt backwards and turned, appearing behind Alex and firing a disarming charm at her. For a heart stopping second he thought he'd won, then she turned herself just before the spell made contact, appearing five feet from where she was and facing him with a smile.
"Not bad" she said before raising her wand again. Harry mirrored her stance, trying to read her next move. He saw it as a brief flicker in her eyes, glancing slightly over his shoulder. He turned just as she did, realizing too late that a jet of blue light had left her wand. As he raised his wand to cast a spell he felt a shove on his lower back and his wand flew from his hand just as Alex reappeared. He fumed silently as he noticed she'd appeared facing away from him.
"Accio" she called. She caught Harry's wand and threw it back to him. "Too stationary, Potter. Keep moving if your opponent is Apparating. They won't know where you are until they appear again and look. Try to make mental notes of my style, my tricks, every witch and wizard has them. Now, again. Ready yourself," said Alex.
This time Harry was ready. He fired a disarming charm at her before running to the left. She easily blocked it and sent a few stunners after him. Harry didn't even bother to block, instead he fired Reducto curses to hit them in mid air. He felt exhausted, doubtful he could keep this up much longer. Digging deep for more energy, Harry started to advance towards her, pleased to see her shields falling apart under his spells and less spells being fired back at him. He fired several more Reducto curses at the ground around her feet to keep her moving. He was onto it. He felt confident that she was weak on her defense so he pushed all the harder. All of a sudden she smiled at him, launched herself into the air backwards, starting to turn as her head became parallel with the ground before vanishing with the tell tale crack of Dissaparation. Harry had just enough time to look dumbfounded before she reappeared above him. Glancing up sharply, his wand still pointing where she was stood a second ago, he saw her wink at him from five feet above him before everything went black.
"Enervate"
Harry opened his eyes to see Alex staring down at him. "Not bad at all Harry." she said, her voice kind and soft again, "A little training and silly tricks like that won't work any more."
"I've never duelled like that before," panted Harry "that was intense."
"That's just the start of things to come," said Alex "Come on, lets get back. I'll show you around the new department of mysteries divisions we're linked with before I do the afternoon induction. You'll be spending a lot of time down there, and, there's a friendly face waiting for you."
"Who?" Asked Harry, getting to his feet and following Alex towards the exit. Glancing back he watched as the floor where his spells had landed repaired itself.
"You'll see." she said flashing him a grin. They stepped up to a door with a red circle next to it. "These are how the Auror's get around the ministry. Just in case we have an emergency here we can use these doors to get to any room here. This is also the only other way to get into the new areas in the Department of Mysteries. All you have to do is place your palm on the circle and speak where you want to go. You try. We want the Artefact Enchantment Division."
"All right." Said Harry placing his palm in the red circle. "Artefact Enchantment Division" He said clearly. The red turned to green and he pulled open the door to a bright white light.
Harry couldn't believe his eyes. It was like stepping into something out of a James Bond movie. They were in a large room with shining white walls. The ten witches and wizards working here were all wearing white lab coats and standing around white tables of varying sizes. Harry had to squint while his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness. He looked around with interest at the different things people were working on.
"Here, I'll give you the tour!" Said Alex laughing and pulling him to the closest table. "No one can get down here but the researchers and the Auror's, top security, you'll see why. Here," Alex picked up a small blue crystal that floated slightly over the palm of her hand. She reminded Harry of a kid at Christmas. "Crystal Cores. Every Auror is issued one now. It's made from the core of the owners wand and won't work in anyone else's hands."
"What's it do?" asked Harry curiously.
"It's been developed to amplify magical signals. With training and meditation you can learn to feel magic flowing through your body. Say I wanted to cast a shield charm with the crystal," said Alex, rolling her left sleeve up and exposing a green crystal attached to a brace on her arm. "I can run a small portion of the magic I'd use to create a shield down my left arm and into the crystal, watch!"
Harry watched in amazement as Alex raised her left arm and produced a shield charm without the use of her wand. What impressed him more was when she lowered her arm and left the shield floating there, stepped around it and looked at him with that childish smile.
"Releasing a spell we call that. You'll learn it all soon. Come on, I've been dying to show you these." Said Alex pulling him to the next station. Here there was two wizards. One had a clipboard and a quill, the other was floating in mid air. Looking more closely Harry noticed that he was standing on small, round metal plates.
"Levitation Pads the researchers are calling them, but the Auror's have dubbed them Fliers. Here," said Alex. She grabbed a much smaller version of the pad and said 'Engorgio' making it grow to the same size as the one the researcher was using. "We're going to be learning these together! Brand new! The idea was to make them quite literally round pieces of metal. The control of them comes from a mixture of controlling a released spell and will power."
Harry watched with wide eyes as the researcher took off around the room, circling around the other researchers, flying to the ceiling before diving back to the ground. Harry was so stunned all he could say was, "They look useful."
"Wow, Harry, understatement of the century?" said a new voice from behind him. Harry nearly fell in his haste to spin around. His eyes reached there widest point as he took in the brown eyes and big bushy brown hair of one of his best friends.
"Hermione!"
"Well spotted," said Hermione, chuckling, "nice to meet you, Mr. Potter"
Blushing, Harry tried to regain some of his composure. "You work here?" he asked.
"I'll leave you both too it," said Alex diving in to the conversation. "I need to get back upstairs for the afternoon induction. Harry, when you've finished here you're done for the day. First full day starts tomorrow morning, nine am in the cubicle to meet the team. It was nice meeting you today. Take care, Harry, Hermione." She waved and turned back forwards the exit.
"So you work here, then?" asked Harry again. "Does Ron know?"
"Yes and yes," said Hermione. "He knows I'm an unspeakable, he just cant tell anyone. Quite literally. The ministry started letting the families of unspeakable's know what they are but cast Tongue Tying jinxes on them to stop them repeating it."
"I've always been curious," said Harry. "What happens if an unspeakable tries to speak about what you do?"
Hermione laughed. "You can't," she said. "Have you ever tried to describe something but, no matter how hard you think, you just can't find the write words?" She waited for Harry to nod before continuing. "It's kind of like that, only worse. It's hard to explain," she said, smiling.
"Makes sense," said Harry trying not to laugh.
"Oh, shut up," laughed Hermione. "We'll be working pretty closely. Each team of Auror's is assigned a researcher to introduce new Ar-Tech to you, and I'll be yours."
"Ar-Tech?"
"Artefact-Technology," said Hermione. "It's what we came up with instead of trying to shorten Enchanted Artefacts into something that's not six syllables. The Auror's tend to come up with their own names for the stuff anyway. There's not much else to show you to be honest. Until we perfect things there's not much point looking at everything. Not everything makes it though safety checks. Are you at Mrs. Weasley's for dinner tonight?"
"Yeah, I do live there, 'Mione"
"Fine, fine. Mum and Dad are out tonight so I'm going to pop round. I get off at five so I'll see you later. There's an apparation point near where you came in," said Hermione.
"Ok cool. See you later, Hermione," he said before turning to leave.
He couldn't help but smile about his day. He hoped that tomorrow he would get his Crystal Core and start to learn how to use it. As Harry reached the place where the wards dropped. He turned back to wave goodbye to Hermione before turning on the spot and disappearing with a loud crack.