- Aside from OCs and AUs everything is the property of J. K. Rowling-

-Chapter Seven- Escaping Hogwarts-

'Welcome home, Harry.'

Harry grinned at Perenelle, stepping into his guardian's embrace.

'Waiting for me?'

She chuckled softly and released him.

'You said that you would join us at eight, and so here I am.' She said, leading him from the arrivals pavilion and down the steps to the villa. 'So, how was your first week at school?'

Harry gathered himself, slightly touched that she'd come up to wait for him, and was asking the question he imagined a real parent would pose their own child.

'Not bad.' He replied. 'Though I've already earned a detention.'

'Really?' She asked, not sounding remotely surprised. 'Dare I ask for what?'

'Flying without a licence.' Harry replied, shrugging unrepentantly.

'I should have guessed.' Perenelle sighed. 'Have they confiscated your broom?'

Harry looked at her innocently.

'Why would they confiscate the broom of the Seeker of the Ravenclaw House Quidditch Team?'

His guardian stared at him.

'You haven't?' She asked, sounding faintly appalled.

Harry tried to keep a straight face. Perenelle had a dislike of all things broom-related, and a horror of Quidditch.

'Youngest Seeker in a century.'

'Of course you are.' Perenelle muttered as they stepped through the open French doors that ran the length of the villa's western face.

'Where's Nicholas?' Harry asked curiously after he'd greeted the delighted house elf that met them, and who popped away disappointedly when he saw that Harry hadn't brought any luggage back with him.

Perenelle gestured carelessly.

'Oh, somewhere about. Perhaps in the smaller laboratory this morning?' She mused aloud. 'Can I offer you breakfast?'

'If you haven't already eaten?'

Harry had deliberately skipped breakfast at Hogwarts that morning, wanting both to arrive at the hour he'd promised, and to avoid having to make excuses to his friends, and probably teachers, for his disappearance. He knew he'd face the questions when he returned, but really, forgiveness had always been easier to win than permission.

'No, no. I assumed that I would eat with you.' She replied, leading him through to the breakfast room.

'You're well rested?'

Harry put down his fork and nodded.

'I am.' He confirmed.

Perenelle inclined her head.

'Then we shall work until lunchtime.' She said, standing and guiding Harry to her study, a large, elegant room artfully decorated in pale green and white and gold, its walls scattered with priceless paintings.

Harry had arranged with his guardians to spend one day a week at home so that he could continue his more… questionable studies with both more convenience and a greater degree of privacy than Hogwarts could offer him. He'd asked Perenelle about Blood Magic a year before, his curiosity having been piqued by a book discussing it that he'd found in the Flamel library. Rather than have her ward wander off and experiment by himself with such a dangerous branch of magic, as she knew he was almost certain to do, Perenelle had elected to take his instruction into her own hands.

'Now.' She began, settling herself on a chair. 'I wanted to discuss blood tracking with you this morning. Blood tracking is a term we use to describe a number of spell areas and functions. With it, it is possible to draw a family tree back through dozens of magical generations, to locate a man half a world away and sheltered by the strongest wards, even to use the residue of a spell to identify its caster.' She paused. 'It also requires extraordinary delicacy and precision of touch.'

Harry nodded, and decided it was a perfect time to broach the subject he'd been mulling over during breakfast.

'I served my detention for the flying last night.' He began slowly, and although Perenelle raised an eyebrow, understandably wondering why he'd segued into an apparently completely unrelated subject, she didn't interrupt. 'Zacharias, that's the boy who got in trouble with me, and I were sent into the forest near the school with the groundskeeper.'

Perenelle nodded curiously, clearly unaware of the Forbidden Forest's formidable reputation.

'We found a tent.'

'A tent.' Perenelle repeated.

Harry nodded.

'Where there should not be a tent. A tent that felt like Blood Magic.'

'Felt?'

Harry tried to find the right words.

'It wasn't warded. It seemed almost like the magic you used to repair Sebastien.' He said.

Perenelle frowned.

'I will not doubt you; your sensing abilities have always been remarkably acute. But that was healing magic… you say this tent shouldn't have been there? It wasn't occupied?'

Harry shook his head.

'I don't know. We didn't try to go inside; the groundskeeper just reported it to the headmaster.'

Perenelle nodded, although she seemed curious.

'Well, I'm sure Albus will know what to do.' She replied. 'But I'm impressed that you managed to remember what the magic I used to heal your friend felt like. Perhaps we should discuss healing with blood connections in a few weeks, although the spellwork is considerably more advanced than anything I've done with you before.' She mused.

'She's here.' Nicholas declared suddenly.

Harry had to force himself to carry on eating calmly following the announcement.

Two minutes later a woman stalked into the room, her big amber eyes flicking around the three of them sat at the lunch table.

'Good afternoon Lord and Lady Flamel, 'Arry,' She purred.

'Hello Ekaterina.' Perenelle greeted coolly, barely glancing up from her soup.

The woman chuckled throatily and draped herself across a chair next to Harry, skin-tight leather stretching sinfully across her lean curves.

'Have you finished, 'Arry?' She asked, staring at him unblinkingly and slowly licking her full, crimson-painted lips.

He was used to her by now, though.

'I have.' He agreed pleasantly. 'If you would excuse us?' He asked his guardians politely.

'Go, go.' Perenelle said dismissively, waving her hand. Harry was fairly sure that she wasn't jealous of the beautiful Russian, but nevertheless seemed to find the woman remarkably irritating. That didn't remove the fact that Ekaterina Aslanova was the very best at what she did, though, and so the lady of the house suffered her presence.

Ekaterina stood up with Harry and followed him through to the hallway and down the long stairway that led beneath the villa.

'Really, Kat?' Harry asked, jerking to one side to press his back against the wall and pointing his wand at the smirking woman as her stinging hex flew harmlessly past.

She looked back innocently, and rolled her eyes when Harry remained where he was and gestured for her to take the lead.

'I do not want you getting complacent.' She said airily and she moved ahead of him, swaying her hips.

'I really don't think I'm likely to get complacent around you.' Harry replied drily.

She tossed her honey coloured hair, but otherwise ignored him as she flung open the big double doors to the huge, empty room they used for their training. The Flamels had another chamber, one that was designed specifically for duelling, but Ekaterina had taken one look at its enormous south-facing windows and pronounced it 'too bright'. Harry had later discovered that her decision had absolutely nothing to do with its suitability for combat, but rather her own desire to avoid too much sunlight touching her milk-pale skin.

'You are ready?' She asked.

Harry nodded, slightly surprised she hadn't just started to throw curses at him.

'Very well.' She smiled slowly, before twirling her wand delicately to spin half a dozen pale blue strands of magic out of the air.

Harry flicked a few powerful stunners at her in an attempt at distraction, but she extended her free hand almost casually and cast a wandless, almost invisible shield that absorbed them before winking straight out of existence.

Harry was immediately forced on the defensive after that, as the blue magic began darting across the distance between them in spitting bursts, guided with inch-perfect precision. He knew Ekaterina would tell him off if he raised a full shield, and so he had to keep up an almost constant string of deflections, knowing that to lose concentration for even a fraction of a second, to allow a single spark of the glittering magic past his defence, was likely to leave him on the floor, writhing with agony.

Three hours later he did drop, although of his own volition, onto the cold stone flags, breathing heavily and covered with a clammy layer of sweat.

'You went hard today.' Ekaterina noted as she stalked her way across the room to stand over him, eyeing his prone form with what looked suspiciously like amusement.

'You always drive me hard.' Harry replied.

She chuckled.

'Oh, darling, you haven't seen anything yet.' She purred smugly. 'But you did well.' She admitted. 'Give it a few decades and you might even give me a proper fight.'

'Decades?' Harry asked from the floor, pulling together as much arrogance as he could in his exhausted state. 'Two years, at most, and I'll have you on the floor begging for mercy.'

She smirked dangerously.

'Darling, if you find me on the floor begging, I promise that it won't be for mercy.'

Harry felt suddenly vulnerable lying on his back before her predatory gaze, and when she extended a manicured hand to pull him to his feet he let go hastily.

'Now go.' She told him. 'I have kept you from your next instructor.'

Harry groaned internally as he looked at his muggle wristwatch and saw that he was indeed going to be at least a quarter of an hour late. Truth be told, he was half surprised that Adam hadn't stormed his way into the room already and dragged him off. He hastily took his leave of Ekaterina and made his way back upstairs.

'Come in.' Came the shouted response to his knock.

Adam Ewart was not the kind of person to deliberately weaponise his appearance, but the sight of the lean, muscular man standing shirtless before him, his long dark hair held back in a loose ponytail, had considerably more of an effect on Harry than all of Ekaterina's undoubtable charms.

'You're not upset?' He asked cautiously as he entered.

Adam smiled at him.

'Of course not. I can understand if you want to spend some time with your family after your first week at school.' He tilted his head, pale eyes gleaming with amusement. 'Or even if you got caught up with Ekaterina.'

Harry had to use Occlumency to repress his blush. It wasn't that he was embarrassed by the implication of Adam's words, as such, but rather that having an extremely attractive man standing in front of him, his abs flexing mesmerically, and making conversation that was forcing Harry's imagination to go… places, was mildly discomforting.

'I'm sorry.' He apologised. 'I think Ekaterina and I got carried away.'

Adam quirked an eyebrow, a smirk playing about his full lips.

'I'm sure you did.' He drawled suggestively, forcing Harry to strengthen his Occlumency to keep the blood from his cheeks. 'Here, drink this.' He instructed, tossing Harry a phial of bright green liquid.

Harry drained the Pepperup Potion, and felt the steam rush from his ears as new energy coursed through him.

'Feeling better?'

Harry nodded.

'Much.'

Adam eyed him.

'You look much more comfortable in your disguise than you did when we last met.' He noted. 'Would you prefer to train without the glamours today?'

Harry was sorely tempted. He didn't much like his appearance as Harry Flamel; he felt skinny and pale and slightly soft around the edges. He knew that all of his own strength and athleticism lay beneath the veil of magic, but living behind a disguise that he himself was unable to see past still gave him a strange sensation at times. Standing in front of a half naked man whose tall form was corded with muscle wasn't helping his new sense of inadequacy.

'No.' He decided regretfully. 'I'd better stay as I am for now. I need to get used to it, and training with you like this will help me to acclimatise.'

This time round it was only two hours before Harry was lying on the padded floor, gesturing mutely in surrender as he gasped for breath.

'Not bad.' Adam said, breathing easily, though Harry's gaze absentmindedly followed a bead of sweat as it made its slow descent down the man's chest.

'Thanks, I think.' Harry said eventually, groaning slightly as he stretched out and felt a string of new bruises across his ribcage. The open-handed blow hadn't felt too painful at the time, but then adrenaline could anaesthetise a multitude of injuries.

'You might want to put some ointment on those.' Adam said, apparently more aware of where he'd managed to injure Harry than Harry himself had been.

'Yes.' He agreed, forcing himself to sit up and massage his calf muscles. 'You didn't hold back.' He noted.

'Why should I?' Adam asked, grinning as he went to pull on a white t-shirt that was so tight and so sheer it did almost nothing to conceal the musculature of his torso. 'You've been training with me twice a week almost every week for nearly five years now. If you hadn't learned some serious skills in that time then I can promise you I would have given up a while back.'

Harry grinned at the compliment.

'Anyway,' Adam continued, 'if we're only meeting once a week from now on then I'm going to have to push you harder in each session.'

'You look tired.' Perenelle observed at dinner that evening.

'I am.' Harry agreed. 'I thought the weekends were supposed to give students a chance to recover.'

Nicholas chuckled, but Perenelle was unimpressed.

'It's your choice to drive yourself this hard.' She said. 'You know your limits and unless I think you are at risk of doing yourself serious harm then I will not stop you.'

Harry nodded. He was grateful for his guardians' hands-off approach; he knew that most parents would have got in his way considerably more frequently than they chose to, but he couldn't repress the faint desire for a little more sympathy, no matter that he knew he had only himself to blame.

'Well, my lessons at Hogwarts are easy.' He said. 'Even Herbology, which I'd never even thought about before turning up in the school greenhouses, is simple so far.'

'Herbology is a fascinating subject.' Nicholas said, taking a sip of wine. 'I know that we have elves looking after the greenhouses here for the most part, but if I had not already dedicated my life to alchemy then I could quite easily see myself as a gardener.'

'I wouldn't even trust you to mow the lawns.' Perenelle declared.

Harry used a powerful portkey Nicholas furnished him with to return to the edge of Hogwarts' wards as soon as dinner was over, and enjoyed the slow walk up to the warmly lit castle in the cool night air.

'Good evening, Harry.'

Harry supposed he shouldn't have been particularly surprised to find the headmaster standing in the entrance hall, apparently waiting for him.

'Good evening, headmaster.' He replied politely, suddenly realising that Professor Dumbledore was the only teacher at the school who addressed him by his first name.

'I am glad to see that you have returned to us safely.' The headmaster continued, eyes still twinkling, but voice sounding oddly serious.

'Yes, sir.' Harry replied, reluctant to explain his disappearance without a direct question.

Professor Dumbledore peered at him over his half moon spectacles.

'I will not ask where you were,' he continued, 'for that is your own affair, and I cannot claim to have always remained within the strictest limits of the school's wards during my student days. However, we have additional security this year, which complicates the issue somewhat.'

'The dementors.'

'Precisely.' Professor Dumbledore agreed. 'If you are crossing the edge of the school grounds then you are at considerable risk of encountering our new guards.'

'I didn't see any tonight.' Harry protested.

'Or when you left this morning.' The headmaster added with a knowing expression. 'I know that I am unlikely to persuade you to discontinue your… adventures.' He said, 'And so I would be appreciative if you would agree to use this for your weekend excursions.'

The headmaster dipped a spindly hand into a pocket of his robes and withdrew a large gold coin from it. When Harry took it, he felt immediately that it was chocolate.

'A portkey?' He guessed, noting the faint tingle of magic about it.

'Just so.' Professor Dumbledore agreed. 'I suggest that you apply a drop of your blood to it this evening, for it to work properly and allow you past the wards. It has the ability to take you to Hogsmeade high street from behind the school's barriers, and to bring you back to the steps of the school from beyond them. You need do no more than focus on your destination with it in hand and allow the portkey some of your magic in order to do its work.'

Harry eyed the coin he was turning over in his grasp, not really sure how to respond. He was amazed that the headmaster had neither attempted to ask him where he had been, nor to stop him from going in future, and staggered that he actually seemed to be helping to facilitate his excursions. He was no expert on magical transportation, but he knew that a repeat portkey of the kind Professor Dumbledore was presenting him with was a deeply impressive piece of magic. For the headmaster to give him something that allowed him to travel past the school's wards, whatever other limitations he had quietly placed on it, was an oddly moving declaration of trust.

'Umm, thank you, sir.' He said eventually. 'I'm very grateful.' He added, the words seeming somehow inadequate.

'Oh, there's no need for that.' Professor Dumbledore said. 'I just want to keep you safe, and I have found in the past that if you clip a bird's wings it will only try to escape you all the more eagerly.'

'So I'm a bird?' Harry asked dubiously, not quite sure he was comfortable with the headmaster's metaphor.

'Not at all. Not at all.' The professor disagreed cheerfully. 'I was just making a passing observation. I am glad to see you back safely, though, and I will let you get off to bed.'

With that farewell the headmaster strode off, the flights of the main staircase rearranging themselves obediently before him. Harry stared after the man for a few long moments, before making his own way up to Ravenclaw tower.

'Harry!'

He smiled slightly at Liram's called greeting as he entered the common room.

'Hey.' He replied, walking over to sit in front of the fire.

'Where have you been?' Liram asked, looking at him curiously.

'Went home.' Harry replied casually, grinning when he saw Anthony's confused expression.

'You went home?' Liram repeated, before smirking slightly. 'Homesick?'

'Just desperate to escape from you guys.' Harry replied.

Liram rolled his eyes.

'But you've come back to us.' He pointed out drily.

'Couldn't stay away.' Harry paused, wanting to be at least somewhat honest. 'My mother's just teaching me some things, and it's easier for me to go to her than for her to come to Hogwarts.'

Liram looked at him intently before leaning in.

'Do you mean Blood Magic?' He whispered.

Anthony looked a bit shocked, both at the question and Harry's nod.

'Cool.' Liram replied. He was trying to be casual about it, but Harry could see a slight edge of nervousness in his friend's expression. 'Will you be going every Sunday?'

'Pretty much, I think.' Harry replied. 'Either Saturday or Sunday. To be honest, I'd prefer Mondays, but although Snape would probably be delighted to see the back of me, I suspect McGonagall would be less impressed.'

'You're probably right.' Liram agreed. 'Although we both know you could stop going to lessons altogether and somehow still be ahead of the rest of us.'

'That's not true.' Harry protested.

Liram looked at him steadily.

'You think you've been subtle about it, joining in and helping everyone when we're doing practical work, but don't think we haven't noticed you quietly sitting and doing stuff that definitely isn't the work we've been set.'

'I do do the work we've been set.'

'Yeah, in like five minutes at the beginning of each lesson.'

Harry couldn't really disagree. Most of the time he already knew the material, and in subjects like Herbology or World Studies, which he hadn't had any interest in, or Literature, where he simply happened not to have read the books they were studying, then the work was simple enough, and the work rate slow enough, that he was able to keep up with almost no effort; particularly when the teachers were forced to slow down and repeat for people like Weasley.

'You're hardly struggling either…' He pointed out, trying to turn the interrogation around.

Liram shrugged.

'Not really.' He admitted. 'But I'm still learning from the lessons. You're not.' He shrugged. 'It's fine by me, of course, that you're way ahead of the rest of us, though I think Daphne is less happy.'

Harry narrowed his eyes.

'You think she's jealous?' He asked curiously. He felt a bit guilty discussing Daphne with Liram, particularly with Anthony listening in, but he wanted to know the other boy's opinion of her behaviour towards him.

'Probably.' Liram said. 'I've kind of known her for years, and she's always been competitive. She probably expected to come here and be at the top of every class before she turned up, and now she's here and she has rivals; Blaise and me, that Granger girl, Smith, maybe a couple of others. And then there's you. In every class the two of you share she's just fighting for second place.' He shrugged again. 'She'll probably settle down, but it'll take her a while to get over the shock.'

'I suppose that makes sense.' Harry said, thinking over Liram's words. He wanted to protest, but he knew that his yearmates were far behind him, and that Liram would call bullshit if he attempted false modesty.

'Speaking of which…' Liram continued. 'Do you mind just glancing over my Economics homework?'

'Right! Let's see if we can manage a lower casualty rate this week.'

Harry thought Madame Hooch's comment was a little insensitive, particularly when her inability to catch him had been at least as much to blame for Neville's injury as the boy's own incompetence. The rumour going round the school was that the intervention of his grandmother had excused him from flying lessons. Harry thought the bullying Neville was likely to receive for his escape would probably outweigh the pain of a few more falls, but then he loved flying, and struggled to imagine the kind of fear it seemed to elicit from the other boy.

Liram had apparently managed to boost Anthony's confidence during the previous week, which Harry decided was an impressive achievement when half of the class was probably still scarred by the sight of Neville Longbottom's accident.

'Doing ok?'

Anthony smiled back, though his unease was plain and his face was pale. They were only hovering a few feet above the ground with the rest of the class as Madame Hooch lectured them on broom safety. The talk was a week too late, and left Harry wondering whether someone had told her to take more precautions.

A couple of minutes later they were all flying in slow circles around the grassed courtyard, Madame Hooch hovering in the middle with a beady eye on them and shouting at Malfoy and Smith to slow down.

'You'd think being on the house Quidditch team would be enough to get us out of these lessons.' Liram muttered to Harry, coming to fly alongside him.

'Yup.' Harry agreed. 'But I think Hooch wants to do everything by the book after last week.'

Liram smirked.

'Poor Neville. I think we're supposed to be done with this class before Yule, though?'

Harry nodded.

'Yeah. Hooch just needs to sign a form and we're free to fly in the grounds in our spare time.' He wondered absently whether any students had ever accidentally fallen into the lake or the Forbidden Forest.

'To be honest, with five hours of Quidditch a week, I don't think I'll want to go flying for fun.' Liram replied.

'What?' Tracey screeched, darting over to join them. 'There's no such thing as too much flying!'

Harry rolled his eyes at her.

'I didn't see you at tryouts…' He pointed out.

'I don't like playing Quidditch.' Tracey replied huffily. 'Too many balls trying to hit you.'

'You don't like balls, Miss Davis?'

'Fuck off, Smith.'

'Hello again, Zacharias.' Harry greeted pleasantly, wondering how many people could join their floating knot of conversation before Madame Hooch came over to break them up.

'Hi Harry.' Smith said cheerfully. 'Congratulations on getting on the Ravenclaw team, by the way. I hear you made it into the reserves too, Liram.'

'Thanks.' Harry replied, wondering what the other boy was up to.

'What do you want, Smith?' Tracey asked.

Well, that's one way of approaching the situation.

'Nothing, Davis.' The boy said. 'Just came over to say hi, and congratulate you guys.'

'Well you've done that now, so you can fuck off.' Tracey repeated, apparently unimpressed.

'No need to be rude, Davis…' Smith replied, taking both hands off his broom to hold them up in mock-surrender.

Liram snorted with laughter when Madame Hooch's sudden whistle caused Zacharias to jump and wobble wildly before he managed to steady himself.

'Smith! Hands on the broom!' She shouted.

He flushed slightly, but gave them a cheerful grin before flying off to rejoin the Hufflepuffs.

'He was perfectly safe until she came up behind him and blew that thing.' Harry commented. Zacharias was annoying, but he could fly.

'Yeah.' Liram agreed. 'To be honest I think she just makes these classes more dangerous by being here.'

'I think Neville's grandmother wanted her fired.' Daphne commented, taking Smith's place flying next to Tracey, though well away from Harry.

'Augusta Longbottom didn't get something she wanted?' Liram commented, feigning amazement.

'My father says Dumbledore stepped in to save her.' Daphne replied, shrugging.

'Do you guys fancy going to Hogsmeade next weekend?'

'We're not allowed on Hogsmeade weekends until next year.' Tracey said immediately, looking up from her attempt to simultaneously eat lunch and finish a Magical Theory essay she had due in next period.

Blaise smirked.

'I know.' He replied, looking pleased to have the group's undivided attention. 'But my mother is friends with one of the aurors who's part of the squad guarding the school. She's got them to offer to escort us.'

'Friends?' Tracey asked pointedly.

Blaise seemed unfazed.

'She,' he began, 'and mother have known each other for years, but if you don't want to go…'

'I didn't say that!' Tracey said hastily, homework apparently completely forgotten.

'Good.' Blaise said. 'After breakfast next Saturday then?'

They all murmured their agreement.

'Mr Flamel. I can't help but notice that you don't seem to be finding the work in my lessons particularly stimulating.'

Professor McGonagall had called him back at the end of her double period, and was eyeing him with narrowed eyes from the high-backed seat behind her desk.

'Not at all!' He protested hastily. 'Your lessons are great, professor, it's just that, well…'

'You've done all of this before?' She interrupted drily.

'Most of it.' He admitted. Of the half-dozen Transfigurations they'd covered in the first few weeks of term, he'd done almost identical spells to four of them, and had worked out the other two pretty quickly with the theoretical knowledge he had.

She nodded.

'I suspected as much.'

She reached into a drawer of her desk and pulled out a small wire cage with a live mouse inside.

'Would you turn this into a snuffbox for me, please, Mr Flamel?' She asked crisply.

Harry raised an eyebrow at her before focusing his attention on the creature. He gently removed the pale brown animal from its container, feeling its tiny heart beating like a vibration against his hand. He murmured a soft stunning spell, which made it freeze in place and roll over on his palm.

He placed the unconscious creature carefully, right-way up, on the polished surface of the professor's desk, before pointing his wand at it and fixing the image of one of Perenelle's decorative boxes in his head. He released the magic slowly, watching fur recede into skin, thin flesh stretch and expand and harden.

'Done.' He said eventually, making no move to touch the object.

McGonagall leaned in intently, picking the silver box up carefully and turning it over slowly.

'Very good.' She murmured softly. 'Very good.' She repeated, before fixing him with her gaze. 'This transfiguration is the practical part of the end of first year exam I set. You managed to do it perfectly, and with not a little flair, without any preparation or incantation. I will be speaking to the headmaster to see what special arrangements we can make for you.'

'Good morning, Harry!' The headmaster exclaimed.

The subject of his welcome wondered idly whether there was something other than sugar in Dumbledore's muggle sherbet that made him perpetually cheerful.

'Good morning, professor.' He replied, nodding a greeting to Fawkes, taking the offered seat and helping himself to breakfast in the pattern he'd become accustomed to after a few of their meetings.

'I'm very pleased with how well you seem to have settled in.' Dumbledore commented, dropping a spoonful of tea leaves straight into a cup of cold milk and stirring the mixture slowly.

'Umm, thank you, professor, is there any reason why I shouldn't have done so?'

A cloud seemed to cross the old wizard's face for a moment before his expression cleared.

'No, no, it just does my heart glad to see students making friends, enjoying themselves, cherishing their youth…' he peered at Harry over the top of his half-moon spectacles, 'being inspired by their studies.'

'Sir?'

'I had a rather curious meeting with Professor McGonagall a couple of days ago, at which she informed me that you seem to be rather ahead in her lessons. Further inquiries revealed a similar situation in your other subjects, although I must admit that Severus proved somewhat reluctant to admit as much.'

Harry grinned slightly at the thought of a compliment being dragged from a professor who seemed to dislike him intensely. Professor Dumbledore chuckled knowingly.

'Yes, I rather suspected that you might run into some… issues with Severus, but he is a superb teacher, and covers all of the first year Potions classes.'

Harry looked at him curiously.

'Can I ask why, sir?'

'For the precise details, you will have to ask Professor Snape, but suffice to say, he and your father were in the same year at school and did not always see eye to eye.'

Harry nodded slowly, wondering.

'But that does not address the issue we were discussing previously.' Dumbledore continued. 'I am aware that you appear to have been keeping yourself stimulated in lessons with work that your teachers have not set, although I appreciate that you also complete the tasks you are set.'

'Yes, sir.'

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled with amusement.

'I have been thinking over this problem, and I do not desire to tear you away from your own studies, so I hope that I have come up with a reasonable compromise. I contemplated having you join more senior students in their classes, but suspect that that would have its own difficulties and complications. Instead, I have spoken to your teachers, and all have agreed to allow you to take the exam they set as an informal assessment at the end of first year. Should you pass, as none of us have any doubt that you will, we will allow you to conduct your own private study in class, in consultation with the relevant teachers, who will help guide you towards appropriate material.'

Harry nodded. The solution was probably about as good as he could have hoped, truth told, but he couldn't help but resent the fact that it would give both his teachers and headmaster precise knowledge of, and control over, what he was studying.

'Now that we've sorted that out,' Dumbledore continued cheerfully, 'I wanted to discuss the most important Wizengamot legislation of the nineteen thirties with you.'

'What's that?' Anthony asked curiously, looking at the book Harry had dropped open on the coffee table between them in the Ravenclaw common room.

'A Transfiguration book McGonagall gave me.' He replied, trying to make sense of the spell diagram on the page in front of him.

'That's not the first year textbook.' Liram observed, looking up from the novel he was reading.

'No. It's on switching spells. To be honest, it's pretty confusing. I don't really understand why you would want to swap a tortoise and a hamster? And if you swap them, have you actually done anything? Are they just the same creatures, in different positions? Does the tortoise suddenly have a mind of a hamster, and vice versa? It sounds kind of cruel.'

'Isn't that OWL level?' Liram asked, completely bypassing the animal rights issue.

'I don't know, to be honest; McGonagall just suggested that I might find it interesting.'

Harry had told his friends of the arrangement he had reached with the headmaster, noting their responses carefully. Tracey had seemed to care the least; she was clever, but not particularly dedicated to academic pursuits. Liram had been honestly impressed, Anthony kind of awed. Blaise had responded politely, but Harry could read the jealousy as clear as day in the other boy's stance and expression. Daphne had congratulated him coolly, before closing off completely, almost completely unreadable.

'Right, children. I'm doing this as a favour to Vittoria, and I expect you to do exactly as I say. My duty is to keep you safe, and in order to do that I need you to listen to my instructions.'

Harry was already beginning to regret accepting Blaise's offer. His mother's auror friend was a tall, thin woman with knifepoint features, hard eyes and short grey hair. Harry hadn't met the notorious Vittoria Zabini, but he was struggling to imagine how a supposedly impossibly captivating society hostess and professional widow became friends with a woman who looked like she'd sooner curse someone's limbs off than engage in drawing room conversation.

Nevertheless, they followed her scarlet-robed form obediently down the steps of the school, and watched, impressed, as she conjured a great gleaming heron Patronus that circled the group of them protectively as the school gates clanked slowly open.

'It is only safe to approach the wardline with the protection of a Patronus.' The woman told them. 'There might only be half a dozen dementors patrolling three miles of perimeter, but they could be anywhere.'

'Is it difficult to cast?' Tracey asked, her eyes following the shining bird.

'The Patronus Charm?' The auror, who had yet to introduce herself, asked. She didn't wait for a response. 'Extremely. It's one of the eight advanced-level spells auror cadets are required to be able to cast before graduating into the field, and is usually one of the two or three they struggle most with. They don't even teach it until the final year of training.'

Hmm, sounds like a challenge. Harry thought.

'Is the charm just used for warding off dementors?' Blaise asked curiously. Harry was rather enjoying the other boy's attempts to fend off awkwardness. They'd all jumped at the chance to escape the school, but his mother's hatchet-faced friend was putting something of a downer on proceedings.

'No.' The woman in question replied shortly, before giving in. 'It is equally effective on lethifolds, and with a minor variation can be used to carry private messages to specific individuals with great speed.'

Useful, Harry mused, wondering idly what form his own Patronus would take.

The walk down to the village after that was twenty minutes of slightly awkward silence, interrupted occasionally by Blaise's attempts to make conversation.

Harry wondered whether they would ever escape the woman's oppressive presence when she asked them where they wanted to go, and then followed them straight into Honeydukes sweet shop, and stood by the door, gaze flicking regularly between her charges and the street outside.

'Harry?' Liram called from the far side of the shop.

'Umm, not really a fan, I'm afraid.' Harry said, eyeing the big bag of Fizzing Whizbees his friend was holding.

Liram rolled his eyes, darting a glance to their guard.

'No, ignore these, I just wanted to talk to you away from her. How are we going to get away?'

'Get away?' Harry asked curiously.

'Yes.' Liram said. 'Escape the bitch. I didn't agree to come just so we could have five minutes in a sweetshop accompanied by a woman who makes McGonagall look cuddly.'

'What makes you think I know what to do?'

'Well you're the bloody master of escape.' Liram said. 'You get out of school every weekend easily enough.'

'That doesn't mean I can slip a trained auror who's standing less than twenty feet away from me.' Harry pointed out, though he was kind of flattered that Liram had come to him.

'We could stun her?' Liram suggested hopefully.

'You really want to try stunning a woman who's probably on a hair trigger and has almost certainly killed people?' Harry asked.

'Maybe not.' Liram agreed reluctantly.

'Are we planning to escape?'

Liram hastily made a shushing gesture to Tracey, whose whisper had been loud enough that she might as well have just spoken normally.

'I don't think we're going to manage it.' Harry told them.

'Urgh, fucking Blaise. Knew it was too good to be true.' Tracey said.

'What if we go to the pub?' Liram suggested. 'Surely she wouldn't, like, sit at the same table as us?'

'Worth a try.' Harry said dubiously.

Tracey immediately went to hurry the others up.

'The Three Broomsticks?' Their guard repeated Harry's polite request dubiously, eyeing the cosy-looking establishment in question. 'I'm not sure you should be going in pubs at your age.' She said.

'We're not going to be drinking alcohol!' Daphne exclaimed, doing some remarkable acting. 'My father would be appalled.' She said, shuddering.

Their auror guard surveyed them. Harry decided in that moment that Anthony and Tracey would never have great careers on stage; the former looked extremely nervous, the latter was practically bouncing up and down in place. Thankfully, the rest of them managed to hold it together well enough that the auror eventually gave a grudging nod, and ushered them inside the pub in question, after first sticking her head through the door and examining the interior.

The six of them quickly found a table. The pub was almost empty, which Harry supposed was unsurprising at eleven in the morning on a Saturday that wasn't a Hogsmeade weekend for the school. He could have cheered when their chaperone stationed herself in solitary splendour at a table next to the door.

'Yes!' Tracey exclaimed, apparently less restrained.

'Can I get some drinks?' Harry asked the group.

Liram went with him over to the bar to give their order. Harry could feel the eyes of their escort burning a hole in the back of his head, presumably making sure they weren't buying anything stronger than Butterbeer from the remarkably curvaceous bartender.

'Are you boys from the school?' The woman asked them as she began to pour their drinks. 'I don't recognise you.'

Liram smiled at her charmingly.

'We are.' He told her softly. 'But don't tell anyone. We snuck out.'

She smiled back.

'Oh my!' She exclaimed softly, 'That must be why you came in with that miserable auror woman; she's chasing after you to bring you back!'

Liram flushed slightly.

'You're first years?' The bartender asked, amused.

'We are.' Harry agreed, trying not to smirk at Liram.

'Madame Rosmerta.' The woman introduced herself, extending a hand over the bar to shake. 'I own this place.' She continued, gesturing. 'I get to know most of the students at the school when they come in here on their free weekends.'

'So you know all the scandals?' Harry asked, smiling.

She returned the expression.

'Of course, but my silence is absolute, you know.' Her long, blonde curls bounced merrily as she finished pouring their drinks.

'I'll get these.' Harry told Liram, handing over a few galleons.

'Next round is mine, then.' His friend said cheerfully, trying to balance four Butterbeers in his grip.

'Ooh, gimme!' Tracey exclaimed as they came over, hands eagerly extended to take one of the frothing tankards.

'So, Blaise…' Liram began, 'how does your mother know this woman?' He tilted his head briefly in the direction of the auror.

Blaise clearly picked up on the edge of mockery, but ignored it.

'Agatha led the investigation into the death of my mother's first husband.' He said shortly. 'The two of them became friends.'

'She's terrifying.' Tracey said, wiping away a foam moustache with the back of her hand.

'Yeah.' Blaise agreed shortly. 'But she's a good woman.'

'So, how's Quidditch training going?' Daphne asked suddenly, looking at Harry.

'It's going well, I think,' he began, grateful for the opportunity to break the silence, but wondering why Daphne was suddenly showing interest in something he knew she didn't care about. He forced on a playful expression, 'But you shouldn't be trying to charm secret information about the Ravenclaw team's preparations from me.'

She rolled her eyes.

'Please. You don't play against Slytherin until after the Yule holiday, and even when you do I think I want you to win.'

'Daphne!' Tracey exclaimed, slapping her friend on the shoulder.

'Do you really want Flint to win the Quidditch cup?'

'I suppose not.' Tracey acknowledged.

'I want to be back up to the school by lunchtime, so if you want to visit any more shops then I suggest that you finish your drinks.'

The six of them looked up from their cheerful conversation at the interruption. To be fair, the auror called Agatha had left them alone for almost an hour. Harry felt slightly guilty for not having offered to buy her a drink. They quickly drained their tankards and wrapped back up in scarves and coats to step back out onto the frosty cobblestones of Hogsmeade's high street.

'What about this one?' Tracey suggested as they walked past a low, glass-fronted shop with a selection of brightly coloured robes in the window.

Daphne barely spared it a glance before arching a pale, immaculate brow. She didn't need to say anything to keep them walking.

'What about Zonko's, then?' Anthony suggested half-heartedly, nodding towards a bright orange shop with a display of miniature, exploding fireworks in its window.

'Yeah, su…'

'Get down!'

Harry dropped instinctively, pulling Anthony, walking next to him, down with him. He flicked his blackwood wand into his hand and dragged Anthony across the street until their backs were against the stone wall of a cottage before looking round.

Daphne, Blaise and Liram were all scions of powerful families in the public eye, and had clearly received training in emergency evasion tactics. They'd all, like Harry, responded immediately to the auror's command and he could see them pressed up against surrounding walls. Tracey, however, was crouched, head down, in the middle of the street. Harry stabbed his wand towards her and she was dragged violently across the freezing street and against the wall next to him.

'Wha…' Harry shoved his hand against her mouth, surveying the street in front of him. No spells were flying. He couldn't see any dangerous animals running loose. In fact, apart from the few confused shoppers who were still staring oddly at the crouching children and the auror who'd shouted, he couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. Agatha, however, was standing in the middle of the street, wand out and raised, gaze fixed on something out of his line of sight.

Nothing seemed to happen for a few seconds after that. The auror glanced briefly around her to locate her charges, before returning her attention to where it had been before. The locals, with a few nervous looks around them, went back about their business.

And then someone laughed.

It was an ugly sound; a hard, demonic cackle tinged with madness. A sudden flurry of terrified movement engulfed the shoppers, who scattered away from the direction the sound had come from. Harry's breath caught in his throat as a woman stalked slowly into view. Her features were gaunt and her skin ash-pale, but she was unquestionably beautiful, with big dark eyes and high cheekbones, her raven-black hair a tumble of messy ringlets atop her head.

Bellatrix Lestrange. Harry recognised her immediately from her picture in the Prophet. He recalled she'd supposedly been spotted in Hogsmeade several weeks earlier, at the start of term. He also remembered that she and Sirius Black were the sole reason Hogwarts was surrounded by guards and on virtual lockdown most of the time.

'Hello.'

Lestrange's voice was high and childlike. She surveyed the scene in front of her as she called her greeting, before aiming a wide smile at the grim-faced auror.

'What's your name then, dear?'

Their guard didn't respond. She gestured briefly with her wand and her gleaming Patronus burst forth, sprinting off in the direction of the school.

Lestrange laughed.

'Already calling for reinforcements, dear?' She asked mockingly. Her own wand was drawn, but held casually by her side.

Harry could see the auror assessing her opponent, weighing her stance and preparedness. He saw her stiffen, before a barely noticeable twitch of her wand brought a great mass of gleaming steel chains into existence, whirling through the air.

Bellatrix's laughter could be heard ringing above the snap and whistle of the projectiles. Harry watched, mouth dry, as she swung her wand casually up from her waist. The chains blew apart in mid air with a pale blue flash, broken links of metal spinning wildly in all directions, clattering against shop walls and shattering windows. He barely managed to bring up a shield in time to shelter himself, Tracey and Anthony.

'You're going to have to do better than that, dearie!' Called Bellatrix, twirling her wand to spin a mass of dark, jagged shadows from thin air that flittered away before darting at the auror from a multitude of directions. Their defender was forced to wrap herself in a thick layer of magic that clung to her robes and skin in order to protect herself. Harry winced as the shards of darkness hissed and fizzled against the barrier. Eventually, they sputtered out of existence, but Lestrange had switched to summoning shards of glass from the windows of surrounding shops and heavy slate tiles from their roofs to fling at her opponent, who was forced to maintain a defence that she couldn't counterattack from behind the shelter of.

Harry was beginning to wonder whether he dared intervene, to try and take some of the pressure off the auror. She knew what she was doing, and was clearly skilled and experienced, but a shield like the one she was maintaining was incredibly draining, and he could almost feel the magical strength whipping off Lestrange. And it wasn't just power she had. The curses she was firing came in an almost constant stream, flowing together and curving through the air in a deadly barrage with terrifying accuracy.

'Bella! No!'

Harry jerked his head away from the duel at the shout and felt his heart stop in his chest. A tall blond man was coming out of the front of a narrow shop a couple of hundred feet up the street, and his glamour was running like water from his face as he pulled out his wand and hurried down the street in their direction. His hair darkened and the light tan drained from his skin.

Sirius Black. The betrayer of his parents was running towards him. He was behind the auror, and she was clearly too absorbed in her fight to notice the new arrival. On that basis alone, with no sign of reinforcements, Harry would have stepped in. But it was fury that made him rise, that brought the bile to his mouth and had his magic crackling and snarling against his skin.

'Whoa shit!' Sirius Black staggered back, barely raising a thick grey shield in time to fend off the blunt force of a blasting curse so powerful that it collapsed the front of the building behind him.

Harry followed it up with a chain of spells he'd only ever used on training dummies before, for all of them were fatal if they came into contact with a human. They didn't. Black held and strengthened his shield. Harry could see the magic he was pouring into it condensing and darkening its colour as it simply absorbed his barrage.

'Bloody hell, kid.' Black exclaimed, his wide eyes barely visible behind the shield he was holding. 'Bella!' He shouted, glancing over for a fraction of a second before returning his attention to Harry. 'Look, I don't want to figh…argh!' He broke off and cried with pain as Harry's shield-breaking curse made contact with his defence. The amount of strength he was pouring into his barrier, which was clearly an extremely powerful Dark spell, meant that it held, but Harry could see it flicker slightly, and the magical runoff must have been like a thousand volts of muggle electricity running through the man's wand.

Harry was broken off in the midst of casting a second shield-breaker by a sudden scream. He instinctively stopped the spell and brought up his own shield as he glanced around.

Shit. Ice ran through his veins as he saw their auror guardian collapsed on the cobbles, blood pooling around her still form. He caught sight of Bellatrix Lestrange smirking with triumph and stalking up the street, eyes fixed on him. He flooded magic into his shield automatically, trained reflexes taking over his wand arm as Occlumency wrestled with the rising panic in his head.

He heard another scream, which he thought from the direction it came in must have been Tracey, and felt his defence begin to vibrate as a burst of almost unadulterated Dark Magic slammed into it, forcing him back against the nearest wall as Lestrange made her steady, implacable advance.

He sweated and forced it to hold, pushing back his sudden terror as he tried to steepen the angle of his pearlescent shield and slide its edges into the wall behind him to reduce the burden and heighten its efficiency. He watched with horror as Lestrange began the wand movement for the shield-breaking curse he'd used on Black. He had no power left to resist, and knew that the backlash from his shield being forcibly torn apart was likely to yank his wand from his fingers and leave his arm almost completely numb with pain.

The last of his pale defence was sucked back into his wand just as the crackling ball of energy reached where his shield had stood. He flung himself to one side and rolled, curling himself around his wand protectively in the motion he'd practised a thousand times. He felt the shoulder of the coat he was wearing snag on the stonework of the cottage behind him, but yanked himself free and recovered into a defensive crouch.

'Harry!'

Definitely Tracey.

Black was wrestling with Lestrange now, for some reason, his arms around her, pinning hers to her side. At the shout, though, his eyes jerked up and fixed on Harry, widening. Lestrange was writhing wildly in his grip. Black's gaze turned back to her, and a moment later the pair of them vanished.

Fuck! Harry screamed in his head. He knew, intellectually, that he'd been massively outgunned, but he'd just seen the man who'd killed his parents escape right in front of him.

Utter silence fell for agonising seconds as Harry stared blankly at the place the two criminals had apparated from.

'Harry!'

He almost dropped his wand as Tracey slammed into him, her embrace boa constrictor-tight as she shuddered uncontrollably against him. Over her shoulder he saw a squad of scarlet robed aurors sprinting down the street, wands out and protected by a big, sparkling blue dome of magic.

Author's note; I really hope that you guys liked this chapter, because I'm quite proud of it (it's also about 9k words). Plot kicked in properly a couple of chapters ago, but things are actually moving now. I hope I did the first encounter with Sirius/Bellatrix justice. Trying to keep them in-character enough to be recognisable, but also sufficiently altered to be interesting. (I can almost promise that their storyline is not going in the expected direction).

Don't want to go on for too long, but also wanted to briefly mention that this chapter tries to engage a bit with one of the primary difficulties I have with canon; i.e. a boy who is to almost all intents and purposes a perfectly ordinary schoolchild being able to stand toe-to-toe with trained adult wizards, and ultimately defeat one of the most powerful wizards in modern history. I'm trying to make it clear that there's a massive gulf between Harry and his peers to bridge some of this gulf (which I hope seems believable), but also that this doesn't immediately allow him to tear everyone apart.

Anyway, enough ranting; please let me know what you thought!