Disclaimer: Nothing is mine; everything is J K Rowling's.
A shorter one I'm afraid, this one's back to normal length, but the last one was longer, so it's not too bad.
Chapter 93
'Shouldn't you be somewhere?' Katie inquired, sitting on the other half of the sofa Harry was sprawled across, cheerfully putting her legs over his ankles when he didn't withdraw his feet to his half of the seat.
'Yeah,' Harry nodded, 'I suppose I should.'
'Last set of exams at Hogwarts,' she mock celebrated.
'I will have completed my NEWTs before you,' Harry stuck his tongue out at her childishly, 'and the written ones all went well already, the potions practical was good.'
'You said the potions paper was hard,' Katie reminded him, shifting her weight, and Harry winced as her hips ground against his shins.
'It was,' he admitted, 'but overall ok.'
'You have an apparition license too,' she giggled. 'Now you're allowed to apparate around everywhere like you do.'
'Takes all the fun out of it,' Harry agreed, pulling his feet out from under Katie.
'You're going then?' She asked quietly, the cheer fading.
'Not until the end of the year,' Harry assured her. 'It's only a few months.'
Not until I have the resurrection stone, he corrected silently.
'Good,' she beamed, 'we'll leave together.'
'What are you going to do when you leave?' Harry asked, frowning. Katie had never actually mentioned her future plans.
'I'm not sure,' she shrugged. 'I have a few try outs with quidditch teams, but nobody huge, and my exam results are good enough to apply to most places, so if my quidditch doesn't work out I guess I'll just search for something that looks good and work there.'
'I'm sure it will work out,' Harry grinned, 'especially with such a good broom to play on.'
Katie blinked at him gratefully, and trailed after him to the edge of the entrance to the common room, ducking out through painting behind him. 'Neville's off with Hannah,' she told him, 'but he asked me to wish you good luck.' She had to speak loudly, for between the two of their faces the satin-clad lady who acted as guardian to Gryffindor tower was singing surprisingly sadly.
'I won't need it,' Harry smirked, ignoring the portrait.
'Hush,' Katie pouted, 'don't tempt fate.' She gave him a quick hug, squeezing him tightly. 'Good luck,' she smiled, 'don't set a giant raven on everyone nearby this time.'
'I'll try my hardest,' Harry promised, chuckling.
His exams were being held in the classroom he normally had Transfiguration in, and where he acted as guinea pig for McGonagall's research; it was only a short walk from Gryffindor Tower.
The door creaked when he pushed it open, and the occupants of the room turned to look at him one after the other. Dumbledore, McGonagall whose classroom they were using, Professor Tofty, whom he remembered from last years exams, and a sheepish looking Professor Slughorn.
'Harry,' the headmaster beamed. 'I'm afraid you will have a bit of an audience. Professor McGonagall decided to stay, and since this is her room I couldn't find it in me to refuse. Professor Slughorn assures me that he left his class of fifth years under supervision to come and watch, though I didn't realise you were taking a potions exam.'
'I'm not,' Harry replied, bemused.
'I wanted to see how well Harry does,' Slughorn chortled, brushing off Dumbledore's veiled rebuke. 'I remember what a gift Lily had for Charms, and Filius praises you as if you have inherited it and more besides.'
The door creaked one more time, and Harry stepped forwards to let the tiny Charms professor into the room as well.
Why not, he figured.
'Oh,' Flitwick squeaked. 'I didn't realise so many of us were coming, don't you have a class, Horace?'
'I left it in the capable hands of a pair of my seventh years,' Slughorn explained. 'It's only a babbling beverage, and relatively harmless.'
'Shall we get started,' Tofty quavered, shooing his iguana off his lap and onto the table where it promptly took an interest in Dumbledore's beard, slowly swiping at it with one clawed foreleg.
'You will remember to vanish anything Harry conjures this time won't you, professor,' Dumbledore reminded gently.
'Of course, Albus,' the old wizard replied in good humour. 'I rarely make the same mistake three times, but as long as Mr Potter does not set a giant swan upon me I will count myself lucky. You deserved every detention you received for that, no matter how majestic a creature it was.'
'As you can see, Harry,' Dumbledore smiled ruefully, 'your teachers will always be reluctant to remember you as anything other than the foolish young men we all once were.'
Slughorn looked rather like he'd just discovered the Wolfsbane potion, no doubt that particular story would be retold at the next party, and likely several after that.
'Transfiguration first,' Tofty decided, gesturing impatiently until Harry came closer. 'I'd like you to perform a partial, human to animal transfiguration upon yourself if you can?'
Harry grinned at McGonagall, who pursed her lips in resignation, and, with a flick of her wand shut the windows just in case.
A moment later and he was bedecked in ebony feathers from head to toe.
'Excellent,' Tofty cried. 'I would ask you to conjure something animated, but I have the records of your OWL exams here, and frankly it seems pointless to ask you do it all again, so if you could untransfigure yourself I will have only one more task in this subject for you.'
Harry obliged, shedding his feathers with a flourish of his wand, and watching patiently as Tofty hasty scrawled something across his clipboard. Behind him Slughorn nodded jovially, reading the notes over Tofty's shoulder until Dumbledore smoothly distracted him, and even McGonagall looked faintly approving.
'I would like you to transfigure this,' the examiner held up a small apple, 'into a clock.'
Harry levitated the apple into the air between them, picturing a simple, wooden clock in his mind, and directing his magic wordlessly through his wand.
If it continues like this, he exalted, I will be free to leave Hogwarts without consequences in less than an hour.
The stalk of the apple lengthened, splitting in two to form the elegant, dark, wooden hands of the clock, and the apple itself flattened out to form the face, but rather than turning to the light wood Harry had envisioned, it crystallised, buoyed by his uncontrolled emotions, and warping his magic away from what he intended.
'Amber,' McGonagall voiced with genuine respect as the clock hung in the air between them, the hands gently moving across its translucent, orange surface. 'Quite impressive.'
'Well done,' Tofty marvelled, shooting a glare at McGonagall, who had infringed upon his role as examiner. 'Do you mind if I keep it,' the old wizard quavered, looking faintly embarrassed.
'Of course not,' Harry agreed politely.
'Very kind of you young man,' Tofty beamed, scribbling frenetically on the clipboard, and tucking the clock carefully away into his bag.
Dumbledore carefully stepped to his left, blocking Slughorn's view of the clipboard, and moving the tip of his beard out of reach of the iguana, whose name Harry had totally forgotten, as it attempted to take a bite out of the lustrous, silver facial hair.
'Now,' Tofty folded the first few sheets of paper over, 'Charms.'
Flitwick shuffled around Slughorn's protruding stomach to get a better view upon hearing it was his subject, and Harry began to wonder if any classes were taking place today with the number of teachers here to watch his exam.
He wasn't even sure they were allowed to be here in the first place.
'If you could fill this with water for me,' Tofty instructed, conjuring a simple, glass vase. 'Non-verbally,' he added helpfully.
Harry dipped the tip of his wand into the vase, and watched as the vase filled itself to the brim with steaming water.
Happiness is harder to suppress than anger, Harry realised, performing as many of his mind-clearing exercises as possible to prevent the continued affect his feelings were having upon his spells.
'Wonderful,' Tofty decided, eyeing the steaming water with some curiosity. 'And into wine if you please.'
Harry paused, momentarily taken aback. This charm was meant to be performed with vinegar, and he was unsure if it would work the same with simple water. He could think of no other way to charm the water into wine, though, not without venturing into Transfiguration, so he performed it all the same, pushing a bit of extra power into it just in case it required more magic to charm water than vinegar.
The liquid turned a deep burgundy, and Tofty shakily bent forwards to sniff the liquid, his back creaking as he did.
'Good,' he nodded, noting down Harry's apparent success on his clipboard as he quietly breathed a sigh of relief. 'Now, multiple, non-verbal charms,' the examiner instructed, pushing the flask back in Harry's direction with the tip of his wand. 'I want you to freeze, levitate, and change the colour of just the wine,' Tofty explained.
Freezing is my forté, Harry mused.
None of the spells were tricky on their own, and he could perform them all without wand motions, so, deciding to sneakily cheat, he cast them all in quick succession while raising his wand, levitating, changing the liquids colour to a bright green, and freezing it into a a solid, emerald orb in the air all before he had finished raising his wand.
'Excellent,' Tofty cried again, oblivious to Harry's technical side-stepping of the rules. Dumbledore smiled, adjusting his spectacles, obviously aware of what Harry had done, while Flitwick chuckled from his precarious position between Slughorn's belly and the clearly hungry iguana which was doing its best to stealthily slide closer to the end of the headmaster's beard.
'Just Defence Against the Dark Arts,' the examiner said cheerfully, 'and I daresay you should be good at this one!'
Harry smirked slightly at that. There were many members of the school that would agree with Tofty for less admirable reasons than the examiner believed.
'A Shield Charm, and a Stunning Spell please, Mr Potter,' the old wizard wheezed excitedly, 'silently, of course.'
Harry nodded, casting the latter, which crackled across the room to hit the iguana just as it reached Dumbledore's beard, and then, without any wand motion, he cast the Shield Charm as he lowered his wand.
'Did you cast them simultaneously?' Tofty demanded, amazed.
'No,' Dumbledore beamed proudly. 'I had an old friend who like to do the same thing the he duelled, only with two different offensive spells. Harry cast one when his wand was outstretched, and the second without wand motions as he lowered it.'
That's an even better idea, Harry decided, such a trick would give him a definite edge in any duel.
'I don't remember any of your friends displaying that in their exams, Albus,' Tofty frowned, and Harry quietly revived the iguana while nobody was watching.
'He wasn't educated here in Britain,' Dumbledore explained softly. 'He was a pupil of Durmstrang.'
'Well he must have been an impressive duellist,' Tofty decided. 'Have I heard of him?'
'Most definitely,' Dumbledore smiled benignly, 'and he was one of the finest duellists I have ever encountered, not to mention a brilliant wizard.'
'Well,' the old wizard quavered, 'it's a shame I didn't meet him, I should have like to.'
'He resides in Germany,' Dumbledore said lightly. 'I visit him from time to time, since he cannot come to visit me, our discussions are as stimulating now as they were when we were young, more so, even, now that he has gained greater perspective.'
'Well,' Tofty said, losing interest in what Dumbledore was saying, though Harry was more curious given the almost mischievous twinkle in the eyes of the old wizard, 'the only other thing I am supposed to ask is if you can produce a Patronus Charm for me.' The old wizard laughed, and wrote something on his clipboard before tucking it back into his bag.
'Are you not going to ask?' Slughorn inquired.
'I saw Mr Potter's corporeal Patronus last year,' the examiner explained.
'I'm sure he wouldn't mind demonstrating again,' Dumbledore suggested mildly.
You just want to see if you yourself, Harry frowned.
'If you insist, Albus,' Tofty conceded. 'Sorry, Mr Potter, I am supposed to ask you anyway really, but I felt it was unnecessary.'
'Expecto Patronum,' Harry whispered, allowing his emotions to run free as he envisioned the family he had glimpsed in the Mirror of Erised, only in his mind he now wore the Gaunt family ring on one finger.
The anzu materialised from the silver cloud that exploded from the tip of his wand, and Dumbledore, who Harry noted was watching carefully, frowned, nodded almost imperceptibly to himself, then smiled, his face relaxing back into that of the benign headmaster Harry wished he was, but knew he wasn't.
'Well,' Tofty scooped his iguana up in his arms, 'that's all I need you to do, Mr Potter, congratulations.'
Harry blinked.
Aren't I meant to have to wait for results?
Tofty seemed to realise a moment later what he'd done because he looked quite flustered, and avoided meeting the eyes of everyone in the room, especially a particularly disapproving McGonagall.
'If that's all,' Harry began, 'should I return to the common room?'
'Of course, m'boy,' Slughorn boomed. 'Just try not to cause too much trouble for the rest of they year now you don't have any studies to undertake.'
'I'll do my best, professor,' Harry smiled brightly. He had plenty of studying to do, just not the type that anyone here would approve of. he'd already had to conceal his reading material from a curious Hermione several times with a quick bit of Transfiguration. The last thing he needed was to be caught reading questionable tomes in the common room.
He turned left and headed up to the second floor rather than going right back towards to Gryffindor Tower. He had promised to tell Fleur when he was done with his NEWTs, and while she expected him to use the locket, he'd rather visit her himself and catch her by surprise.
Harry wanted to be able to see her face when he told he had found the resurrection stone.
Fortunately the bathroom was empty for once, and he was able to slip straight into the chamber without interruption, or having to hide from second and third year Hufflepuff girls, many of whom still seem convinced by Luna Lovegood's explanation of his mission and couldn't look him the eye.
Harry could only imagine how badly that particular rumour would escalate if he was caught in a girls' toilet.
Damn you Katie, he thought amusedly, stepping into the entrance of the main hall of the Chamber of Secrets.
With a soft snap he apparated himself into the room that had become their study.
'Get off my paper,' Fleur shooed, apparently unsurprised by his sudden appearance.
He took several steps back off the large sheet of rune-covered parchment that covered the floor. Fleur, it seemed, was sketching out all of the runes she could find on the Deathly Hallow and writing them in columns down the page.
'That is not washing,' Harry commented dryly.
'It's not like I had a way to give it back,' she shrugged, unrepentant.
'Find anything exciting?' He asked.
'Every thread is covered in thousands of runes, and they're all different, and they've been woven together to create a texture of different pieces of magic, like what I did with the lock, but a thousand times more complex.'
'That sounds like a yes,' he grinned.
'I could study this for the rest of my life and still not understand how it works,' she enthused.
'That's good,' he smirked, 'because I need it back.'
Fleur pouted from her spot on her knees on the floor, but passed his heirloom back to him regardless.
'NEWTs went well,' Harry said absently, 'Potions was hard, and so was the written part of Charms, but I certainly passed.'
'Did you get an Outstanding?' Fleur rose to her feet, carefully folding up the piece of paper and tucking it into one of the drawers.
'Hopefully in all of them,' Harry nodded, 'though I'm not sure about Potions.'
'I got four,' she smirked.
'I have a Triwizard Trophy,' Harry retorted playfully.
'I have better OWLs too,' she continued happily, tossing her hair back over one shoulder.
'I steel 'ave a Triwizard Trophy,' Harry grinned, adopting a terrible French accent, and tilting his chin in the air how Fleur did when she was being playful or proud.
'You're supposed to pick a new thing,' Fleur told him archly, switching to French so she could laugh at his genuinely imperfect accent.
'I don't need to,' he smiled, also in French 'it's like a trump card; it beats everything else we've done.'
'Until you defeat Voldemort,' Fleur reminded him, 'then you can make yourself a Dark Lord killing trophy.'
'I think I will,' he grinned. 'I will make it a little column, with a book at the bottom, then a cup draped in a locket, and containing a ring, with a diadem on top, and all encircled by a serpent.'
'You're incorrigible,' Fleur told him fondly, 'and it will look hideous.'
'Better than the door,' Harry responded, 'which was definitely nicer white, than blue.'
'Liar,' Fleur accused, smirking. 'I know how much you like that shade of blue after you painted the walls of this room with it too.'
'I had some left over.' Harry shrugged casually, as if he hadn't deliberately bought too much to give himself a reason to paint the inside of his study, the room he spent most of his time when Fleur was away, the same shade as the summer sky.
'So did you only come to pick up the washing your partner has dutifully done for you?' She teased.
'Not entirely,' Harry pulled his most innocent face, and Fleur immediately looked suspicious.
'What have you done now?' She demanded.
'I found it.'
'Found what?' Fleur asked.
'The stone,' he grinned victoriously, 'I found the resurrection stone.'
Fleur's eyes widened and she swept across the room to extend her palm out in front of him. 'Show me,' she pleaded excitedly.
'I said I found it,' Harry placated, closing the fingers of her hand, 'not that I have it.'
'Oh,' Fleur looked crestfallen. 'Where is it?'
'Currently?' Harry's smile turned a little cold. 'On the finger of Albus Dumbledore, but it won't be there for long.'
'Don't do anything rash,' Fleur warned, catching his fingers before they left hers.
'I'm not going to duel him for it,' Harry laughed. 'There's no way I would ever win, and it's not worth the risk.'
'You have to take it,' Fleur reminded him gently.
'I will steal it,' Harry grinned, 'that ought to do. We're hunting horcruxes together soon, if an opportunity doesn't arise then, I will engineer one by discovering the diadem again.'
'Good,' she looked very relieved that he did not intend to try and duel Dumbledore, and he could hardly blame her. The headmaster might be old, and Harry doubted he had dabbled in rituals to the extent that he and Voldemort had, but he moved sprightly when he needed to, and had such an extensive knowledge of magic that it would likely be a short conflict.
'I will plan everything through in detail with you before I do anything,' he promised softly.
'As you should,' she told him fiercely. 'How did he come by it?'
'The ring was owned by the Gaunts,' Harry smiled, 'Voldemort's family.'
'They are descended from the Peverells,' Fleur recalled, 'and Slytherin too. An unsavoury group,' she wrinkled her nose, 'had a habit of marrying each other.'
'That sounds about right,' Harry chuckled. 'Voldemort made it into a horcrux, and I don't think he even knows what it really is.'
'It's so close,' she breathed, fingers twitching against Harry's.
'You want it almost as much as I do,' he accused gently. 'So much for a children's story.'
'Now that I know they are real,' Fleur shot him a pointed look, 'I cannot wait to see them for myself. The enchantments, the ingenuity…' She trailed off in awe.
'We'll have the rest of our lives to study them,' Harry promised her.
'It may take that long,' she trailed the fingertips of her free hand over Harry's cloak almost reverently. 'I can barely decipher the runes themselves, let alone the intent of the piece of magic woven into each thread.'
'And then there's the way the threads are woven together,' Harry finished for her, smiling indulgently at her raptured fascination.
'What else have you been up to?' She asked suddenly. 'You haven't found the Elder Wand too, have you?' Fleur asked coyly.
'No,' he grinned, 'sorry, you told me nobody has seen or heard anything of it since Gregorovitch claimed to have it, so I didn't go looking. Dumbledore wanted to tell me lots of things about Voldemort'
'Well if you happen to find it,' she smirked, 'hold on to it, it's probably useful, and I want to see the enchantments on that too. Now what did your headmaster say about Voldemort?'
'I'll get you one for your birthday,' Harry promised dryly, and Fleur laughed lightly.
'I'd prefer something sweet,' she admitted guiltily.
'Are we out of sugar again,' he grinned.
'Perhaps,' a faint such suffused her cheeks.
'If Voldemort ever discovers us it's going to be because you have to keep going in to the village to buy sugar,' Harry remarked amusedly.
'As if I will run into the Dark Lord in the local shop,' Fleur rolled her eyes. 'I doubt he has a holiday home here.'
'Probably not,' Harry laughed.
'Dumbledore said…' Fleur encouraged.
'Sorry,' Harry apologised, 'I got distracted. He told me about Voldemort's family, which was interesting but not overly useful to me right now, and, more importantly, he invited me to go horcrux hunting with him.'
'Gringotts?' Fleur asked hesitantly.
'No,' Harry's smile widened, 'I don't believe it is.'
'The locket,' she realised ecstatically, 'but that means…'
'We're almost there,' he nodded, wrapping her in his arms and pressing her tightly against him. 'Soon,' he murmured gently into her hair, 'there'll just be him and Nagini, I'll have the resurrection stone, and I am free to leave Hogwarts at the end of the year once I have it.'
'We'll be free,' Fleur breathed into his collarbone, pushing her face further into the crook of his neck.
'Neville can look after himself,' Harry continued, 'Katie will be leaving with me, and I'll make sure she goes somewhere safe. We'll be here together, Gabby and your parents are fine in France, Dumbledore will fade as the withering curse consumes him, and I'll find some way to defeat Voldemort.'
'You make it sound so easy,' she sighed.
'It will be,' he assured her, buoyed by how well things were suddenly going. 'I don't have to be more powerful than Voldemort to kill him. I just need to be clever.'
'He's clever too,' she warned him.
'He has more enemies to worry about, more problems to consider,' Harry countered, 'but Voldemort and his wretched reptile are the only things standing in between us and what we want most.'
'What do you want?' Fleur asked, pulling back to stare up at him through her veil of silver hair.
'Mostly you,' Harry admitted, unable to resist kissing her when she looked up at him like that. 'But there were other things in the mirror.'
'The Mirror of Erised,' Fleur realised softly. 'Was Salazar in there? The Hallow? Katie or Neville?'
'I think Salazar would be now,' Harry said quietly, 'but neither Neville nor Katie were. They are not what I want most, even if I value their friendship more than almost anything else.'
'So what was there?' She asked curiously. 'I know what I would see,' Fleur continued, knowing that she should share her dream if she wanted Harry to reveal his. 'We'd be there together, with my parents, and Gabrielle, under the willow tree maybe.'
'In the warm,' Harry commented wryly.
'Everyone I care about in one perfect place where they can't be harmed,' Fleur murmured.
'There was another girl in the mirror,' Harry confessed very quietly, and Fleur stiffened suddenly against him. 'She had silver hair, and looked so much like you I thought she was Gabrielle at first,' he squeezed her reassuringly, 'but when you picked her up she turned to look at me, and she had my eyes.'
Fleur's arms tightened around his back, crushing herself into his chest, and burying her face against his neck. Harry softly kissed the top of her head.
'It's not a dream for now,' he continued gently, unable to completely ignore the twist of anxiety that told him she might flinch away from such a commitment, 'but maybe… one day.'
'One day there will be a little, green-eyed girl with silver hair,' Fleur whispered, and Harry needed no indication other than her tone to know how happy he had made her.
I should have told her a long time ago if it makes her so happy, he realised, smoothing her hair down, and running his fingertips through the cascade of soft silver.
Something warm and wet slid down the side of his neck from beneath the brushing of Fleur's eyelashes against his throat, leaving a hot trail along his skin as he held her gently against him, kissing her forehead, as the stream of joyous tears soaked quietly into the collar of his robes.
'What a perfect thing to wish for,' she murmured.
AN: Please read and review, thanks to everyone who does.
