Chapter Thirteen:
The next morning, Harry started another of his Potions essays, before he had to go down for breakfast – he'd have both Potions and Defence Against the Dark Arts today, as well as watching over Remus taking the last of his potion.
First period, however, was Transfiguration.
Harry entered, feeling kind of out of place, as he'd been the teacher for a long time, and because he was the only person in the room who was wearing something other than the school robes – he was still wearing the Seekers uniform.
McGonagall gave him a fond smile as she took up her place in front of the class – all of the teachers were seemed that way towards him lately … it was kind of annoying.
The lesson was easy – cross species transformations. Harry started off from a button, because it was slightly more interesting, and amused himself by changing the buttons form to various different predator-prey forms.
The only other person who mastered it was Hermione, although Ron came very close. The whole class didn't pay much attention to Harry, knowing that he'd learnt this ages ago.
McGonagall gave the rest of the class an essay on why it was so difficult to perform predator prey changes, and if they could find out why they'd encountered the problems that they'd had that lesson. Harry was told not to bother with this assignment, as McGonagall had seen the load that Snape forced upon his unlucky least favourite student.
Harry left that class for charms, which also passed fairly easily for him. The class was learning a charm to hold faeries still, as the small magical creatures could be very hard to hold – it also worked quite well with pixies.
Harry, Ron and Hermione wished they'd known this charm when Professor Lockhart had set them catching the pixies he'd set on his class three years ago.
Harry hadn't actually learnt that spell, as Sirius had forgotten about it and it wasn't in the textbooks, but he mastered it very quickly – probably because he used Wandless magic rather than his wand, but he did take the time to master it with his wand as well. He'd done this by the end of the lesson.
After the break would be potions, and Harry decided to hand in the assignments he'd finished so far. He completed the one he'd been doing before classes that morning in the break, and had now finished around a quarter of the assignments.
He, Ron and Hermione went down to the kitchens to eat there rather than in the Great Hall, because Harry didn't like everyone staring at him – thanks to his time in the Seekers Academy, he was a very private person these days, and didn't really like all the attention he got.
Also, the kitchens were closer to the Dungeons, and he and his friends arrived at the classroom just as the bell went, Snape wasn't there yet, so they couldn't be accused of being late.
The rest of the class arrived not long after, and Harry sighed, realising that his house had lost its 'protector' in these lessons, since he was now a student as well as they were.
Oh well, he could still do some things to get at Snape, like getting things right, or helping Neville with his Wandless and Elemental magics. The poor boy was still a bit clumsy in Potions, and Snape still delighted in picking on him.
Snape strode down the hall, looked slightly disappointed to see his class had all gathered, so he couldn't yell at the Gryffindors for being late, and led them inside.
Harry settled away from Ron and Hermione, in fact, away from everyone at a single desk near the back of the room. Not as many people would look at him, and Snape wouldn't be able to accuse him of helping the others … even though he would be.
Harry glanced at the board as Snape wrote the name of the Potion they were studying. Drought of the Living Death.
He smiled faintly – Snape had asked him questions about that potion back on his first Potions lesson in Hogwarts, as he recalled. Well, he might not have known anything about it then, but he certainly did now!
Without bothering to look at the ingredients Snape wrote up, Harry pulled out his things and began, not really noticing that everyone had stopped copying the recipe down and was staring at him, nor that Snape had actually stopped writing.
"Potter, don't you think that you need a recipe for that? It is a very difficult Potion which requires precision and accuracy in every action you make," Snape snarled.
"I am aware of that, but I also am aware of how to make this Potion, as a student of the Seekers Academy, trust me I know. We are trained to be assassins, and this is a very useful potion for an assassin to know," Harry replied, voice soft and almost silky.
Snape glared for a moment, and the Slytherins look at him, seeming almost afraid – they'd forgotten that fighting was not all that people learned at the Seekers Academy. The Gryffindors smiled faintly, since it was a rare thing to see someone tell Snape something back like that, something that the Potions Master could not dispute.
Harry made no move to press the issue as he returned to his work, and he could feel Snape's eyes on him for most of the lesson. This was good, since he wasn't watching Neville, and couldn't see the boy getting everything right.
Harry used Wandless magic to make hints appear in front of Neville when the boy was going to get something wrong, but let the boy do things on his own otherwise.
Snape appeared disgusted when Harry's potion turned out better than anyone else's, even his pet Malfoy. Harry knew that Snape had seen him put different ingredients in the potion to the ones that were on the board.
Harry scarcely even looked at the board, but he could tell that it was the same instructions as were in the textbooks – at Seekers Academy, he'd learned a lot of things different to the textbooks, in fact, most of what he had learned there was different to the textbooks, and better too. But Seekers didn't share their secrets, that was against the Laws of the Academy.
So on the way out, he reached out with his Wandless magic and touched Snape's mind, ever so gently with a memory modifying charm – immediately the teacher forgot that Harry had done anything other than what had been written on the board.
Now it was time for Defence Against he Dark Arts, and with Sirius teaching, he'd have a ball. They were working on the Patronus charm, as Harry had finished the few things that people usually knew about Wandless and Elemental mages – most of it was lies, but he always said that it was 'supposedly' something or other.
Sirius had done the Patronus with the elder years, but now it was the turn of the Fifth, Harry was glad that it was happening after he'd returned to classes, now his Godfather could give him points for mastering the spell.
That was indeed what the lesson was about, Ron and Hermione did well, if not as well as Harry, as he'd been giving them lessons with the Young Phoenixes.
The three of them earned sixty points for Gryffindor, and most of the others won at least five. Blaise got ten points, and three other Slytherins managed to get five, though Sirius didn't look very happy about it.
Sirius only gave Blaise ten points because he knew that she was his godsons' friend, and that Harry had taught her what she knew of the charm, so he didn't mind her as much.
Malfoy had a lot of difficulty with the spell, because he kept pronouncing the words wrong, but Sirius pretended to only notice when the Slytherin boy was called to show what he'd learnt in front of the rest of the class.
That day Harry spent most classes mucking around, bored because he'd known all of this stuff for what seemed like forever, since in truth he was sixteen years old now.
He was patient, however, and didn't get much homework because he showed a solid understanding of what he was doing in classes. By the end of the day, Harry was ready to blast a hole in the wall he was that bored, but he knew that things would get better soon enough.
That night, also, he had to oversee Remus taking the last of the Potion and finally being healed of the curse that had plagued him for so long.
He would also go and speak to the Unicorns that night, to see what they had come up with, he could only hope that they'd found the other Dothae that his parents had brought back.
When classes finished, he headed straight for the teachers wing to Sirius's room to find Remus, Sirius and the watchers had all assembled already.
When Harry walked in, Remus smiled at him, the sad look in his eyes was gone, replaced by something else … not happiness, exactly, but something.
He smiled at Remus, and felt a warm feeling in his chest when Remus smiled happily back, Sirius looked happy too, and the darkness that Azkaban had left on him was finally gone, Harry knew it – gone beyond return.
He watched, holding his breath, as Remus took the last sip of the potion, and gold light surrounded him. Harry knew what this was – it restored the lost youth of a person who'd been bitten, and sure enough, when the cloud passed, Remus look much younger, his hair was fully golden-yellow now, the greyness in it was gone.
The first sip has isolated the poison that spread from the werewolf's fangs, putting up a barricade and beginning working on it to change the symptoms.
The second sip fully changed it so that it became like the Animagus spell rather than a poison that rose and fell throughout the month to the moons pull.
He smiled as Remus and Sirius hugged each other gratefully, there were tears of relief in the former werewolf's eyes.
Still smiling, Harry slipped away, noticing that the others left also, so that the two old friends could enjoy this triumph together. He watched the others for a moment, until he was sure that no one was watching him, then he changed form, and the black panther that was his Animagus form slipped silently away into the night, a Wandless charm turning his wings to black so that he was hidden completely.
The moment he got out the castle, he burst into a run, feeling a sense of delight as he charged across the moonlit grounds, feeling muscles bunch all over his body as he moved with the fluid grace of the big cats.
Halfway across the grounds, his movements changed and he thrust his back paws down hard, sending himself in a smooth leap into the air, wings sweeping out and downward, propelling him upward.
A quick call with his Elemental powers, and a breeze sprang up, sweeping under his huge wings and holding him aloft.
The panthers green-gold eyes smiled in happiness and Harry played through the air, laughing his mind – he loved the freedom of the open skies.
A short time later, Harry swooped down and landed neatly before the unicorns. *Who are you? What are you?* the unicorns asked him. With a silent, regretful sigh, Harry changed back to human form, this form was weak and slow compared to the panther, but he kept himself in peak physical condition, so he was better of than some he could name, and for the first time in an age, the thought of his cousin entered his mind.
*You know me. I wanted to ask you if you had any luck with finding the Dothae?* Harry replied, not wasting time with re-introducing himself.
He smiled faintly at the looks of surprise that flickered through the unicorns eyes. *Yes. We found the other, a young male. But what if he does not want to come with you?* The leader of the herd demanded, eyes cold and flashing.
*Whether or not he wishes to come with me, he will be remaining with this herd – quite frankly, I do not have the time to look after one of these creatures and I'm not sure that I would be best cut out for the job in any case,* Harry replied. *I certainly do not wish to enslave them – I am merely trying to do the world a favor by bringing back some of the creatures that it destroyed.*
He could sense the surprise of the unicorns, they'd expected him to be a 'human' type of human being, to obsessed with fame and vanity to care about the feelings of a beast.
*I will bring the other one to you tomorrow morning,* he added to the unicorns, *and you can look after them, on the shoulders of this pair rests the entire species of the Dothae, I hope you do well in raising them, and I will do my best to bring more back with me. The Dothae are just the starting the point, many others will be returning through the ages, with the aid of my family.*
With that he changed form again and padded off, large paws silent as he padded across the forest and back to the common room where more Potions essays awaited him.
Ron and Hermione wondered where he'd been, but he didn't really want to tell them about what his parents had done, nor about what he had been doing in Atlantis, so he just told them that he'd stayed behind with Remus and Sirius for a little while, and then gone for a little stretch in his Animagus form.
It was always easiest to lie when you kept fairly close to the truth, and his two friends believed him, after all, what reason did he have to lie to them?
The next morning, Harry was surprised to discover that he'd finished all of the Potions work – he'd been surprised at how easy most of it was, and growled in annoyance when he realised that all the Slytherins had gotten high marks when the Gryffindors got really low. Oh well.
That day, he spent the day with the Young Phoenixes, training them in fighting and magics that they might not know. A lot of them had some aptitude for the Wandless and Elemental Magics, and he was also very interested in looking for people who could become Animagi – without telling the Ministry so that they could move around without the Death Eaters knowing their movements.
So far he had Cho, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ernie and Ginny marked down, and was looking at Fred and George, since in some cases the talent might run in the family.
Today, though, they were working on things that might be useful, mainly different duelling techniques that would be useful. But today, something odd had happened – Blaise Zabani joined them.
At first most people were more than a little wary of her, but those who were already taking lessons from Harry as a teacher knew that they could trust her, and told the others, so gradually everyone relaxed.
In the middle of the day when it was beginning to get warmer, they settled down in chairs in the library to do their homework, careful to keep quiet and work hard, to keep away the wrath of Madam Pince.
Harry wandered around between all of the tables, whenever anyone needed some help, they would simply wait until he reached them and ask for it.
In the late afternoon they disbanded, Harry, Ron and the rest of the Quidditch team headed out to the pitch, Harry had to go through with the formalities of trying out for the team, even though everyone knew that he'd get the place.
The trial began, Harry was the only player trying out for the team, so he and Denis would be looking for the Snitch to see who caught it and how long it took them, and the other players reactions and so on.
Ten minutes later Harry dove – straight down. Hurtling downwards as fast as his broom would take him, Harry was only vaguely aware of Denis attempting to follow in a slightly more safe way – when Harry saw victory for his team, he threw safety to the winds and did whatever was necessary to win.
A moment later he was pulling out of the dive, the snitch clutched in his hand, eyes dancing in triumph and a smile playing over his features.
The team cheered, and Denis cheered with them, Harry was glad to see. The other Seeker flew down slowly to Harry's level. "You're back on the team, I'll be going as Reserve, just in case, but that was the way we always planned it – I was never as good as you were, and everyone knew it," Denis told him.
Harry grinned and held out a hand to shake hands with the boy. "Thanks Denis, I hope you don't feel too bad about it," he said.
"How could I? You're a legend! No one is as good as you are!" Denis laughed, and flew down to land on the ground. "I've been practicing for a while anyway, you stay up there and practice with the team, you'll need it, the game against Ravenclaw is coming up! Last in the season!"
Harry raised a hand in a salute, and let the Snitch go, with his own magics he created bludgers and things that would try and knock him off his broom, making them harmless to everyone else, and threw himself into the joys of playing Quidditch.
Darkness was falling when the team headed back up to the castle, Harry feeling comfortably exercised while everyone else was panting heavily.
The practice he'd had in Atlantis was really paying off, and while for practices now he was using his Firebolt, he was waiting for the first game of the next year – against the Slytherins – before he'd bring out the broom he'd brought back from Atlantis, he'd probably give the old broom to Ron.
"You know," he remarked to Angelina, "we really should be spending a lot more time training the new Beaters and Chasers, so that we are ready next year, since you lot will all be gone."
"Yeah, that's a good idea," Angelina replied thoughtfully – she was the Captain this year, which was a good thing, she was level headed and not the fanatic that Wood had been.
"I'll do anything I can to help, of course," Harry added, "but I'm not sure how well I'd do."
"Thanks Harry, I'm sure we can enlist the help of the whole team and we'll see what we can do, you are certainly right, I want to give Gryffindor as good a chance as possible after I've gone," Angelina smiled, then ran to catch up with Fred, her boyfriend.
Harry wandered across the grounds, he didn't feel like going up to the castle just yet, and he'd have to take Lia to the unicorns soon too. Maybe he should do that now …
When he arrived at Hagrid's, the half giant was gone, Harry knew that he'd been asked to act as a representative of the Ministry of Magic to talk to the giants and present the case of the Magical World.
Lia was out in the back yard, grazing happily. *Come on Lia, it's time to go and meet some friends,* Harry called to her, and the baby Dothae bounded across the ground to Harry's side, gazing up at him adoringly.
*I'll leave you with them, but I'll come and visit often,* Harry promised. *They are unicorns, and will be able to take better care of you than I can.*
Lia looked a little sad, but when Harry told her who he would be leaving her with, she immediately cheered up completely, she'd never seen unicorns, but she'd heard a lot about them.
Harry didn't really want to meet with the unicorns again, so he left Lia just nearby with instructions on how to find them, before wandering off absently.
He didn't really pay much attention to where he was going, and when he ended up in a clearing that enabled him to see the stars, he settled down and looked at the sky.
When there was a crackle of twigs, Harry didn't so much as start. "It's been a while since I saw a centaur," he remarked aloud to his companion.
He heard the sharp intake of breath, and judged that it be a male, middle aged and quite strong.
"Your companions may come out, if they wish. I take it you are here to watch the skies," Harry added, smiling to himself as he heard another two centaurs move into the clearing.
"You would be Bane, Rowan and Firenze, would you not?" He remarked.
"Yes," one of them replied, by the mournful voice Harry decided that it was Rowan.
"Ah yes, you may remember me, from several years ago. I am Harry Potter," once more there was surprised sounds from them, and finally, Harry turned around to look at them.
"How have you been?" He asked them easily, smiling faintly.
"The stars have much to say about you," Bane told him. "Many things, so many that it is impossible to decipher them all, but there is one thing that we may tell you – the stars predict you death, but they tell of events that come after. With one oddity – you are still in them. Remember that, I do not know why, but we must tell you this," then the huge black centaur turned and galloped into the night, Rowan followed at his heels.
"Well Harry Potter, we meet again," Firenze remarked, smiling faintly.
Harry smiled in return. "So we do, Firenze, so we do. I can't remember if ever thanked for you saving my life, back in first year, so I will say thank you again. I owe you my life, and if I can ever help you, rest assured, I will," he told the centaur.
"It is a rare occasion that a human says that to a centaur, much of the time your kind is so vain and self cantered that they do not care for the beings that inhabit their planet," Firenze remarked.
"But I am insulting your kind, so forgive me, please," he added after a moments thought.
"Oh, you are forgiven. I am well aware of human stupidity and vanity, and unfortunately those who are supposed to lead us are the worst of them," Harry remarked. "But not all are like that, they are simply the ones that are more well known. My friends are different, very different."
"I know this, the stars tell much, and some centaurs have the vanity to say that they can read it all, but no centaur can do that. In truth, we share the same qualities that we so dislike in humans," Firenze remarked.
Harry nodded. "I know, and really, I think that every species does – we have to, to have some pride in ourselves," he remarked.
"For a human, and your age, you are wise, Harry Potter, but I must go now, there is a meeting in a short time, and I have to summon the others," Firenze said, rising.
Harry nodded and bid the centaur farewell, and watching as he galloped away. He smiled faintly to himself, there were no others, save perhaps Sirius, who had been to the Seekers Academy who would do what he had just done – admit that they had a life debt with anyone let alone a centaur.
Thinking of the Seekers Academy, he wasn't doing anything, why not go and visit the place? He'd always liked the mountain, deadly and dangerous, but beautiful none the less …
Closing his eyes for a moment, he called on the Dark Elementals, weaving them into a gateway, a void of darkness like the one that Shadow Master had made for them back when they'd first met the man.
Striding through it without fear, Harry appeared deep in the heart of the mountain, where few people ever came. He knew his way out of here, he'd come down here often enough, and Shadow Master had given him a mind map of sorts that would allow him to find his way out of anywhere in the mountain.
He released the Dark Elementals and called on his Wandless Magic, thinking of the time when such things would have had him in bed completely worn out, and that was not even a year ago in this time.
Using a Wandless Charm to render himself invisible to anyone's eyes, Harry shifted form, the giant black panther padded silently through the corridors and passageways, all the time making his way for Shadow Masters rooms.
This would be where the new ruler of the school was, Harry knew, and depending on who it was, he would stop to talk with them for a little while, exchange some news.
Reaching the more used corridors of the mountain, Harry kept a careful eye out for anyone who might be around who could bump into him and ruin everything – no invisibility charm could make you unable to be touched.
Reaching the door to the Shadow Masters quarters, Harry was relieved to find that someone had just made their way to Shadow Keep and had been accepted into the ranks of Seekers-In-Training.
What he was quite surprised to see, was that it was Tiger who was with them. Was Tiger the new Shadow Master?
'Who's Tiger?' James demanded in Harry's mind, they'd been quite quiet lately. Harry quickly explained to his father who Tiger was (or who he had been before).
'Ah.'
Harry slipped closer and waited for one of the younger students to appear. His suspicions were confirmed when the student greeted Harry's first teacher and almost-friend at the Seekers Academy as "Shadow Master."
Harry waited patiently while the Shadow Master sent the new student off with the other and returned to his office.
When he did, Harry was on his heels.
"Ok, which of you is following me this time?" Shadow Master asked, evidently amused by the whole thing.
Harry allowed his invisibility charm to fall away, and Shadow Master nearly fell out of his chair. "Panther?" He asked incredulously, eyes widened in surprise.
"That's right, not one of your new recruits. So it was you who got to be Shadow Master, obviously," Harry replied, eyes glinting in amusement.
"Yes. Perhaps you could help us solve a mystery for me, no one seems to know who killed the old Shadow Master, or how," Shadow Master remarked.
"That would have happened," Harry remarked to no one in particular. "The answer to your question is simple, my old friend. No one killed Shadow Master. A four hundred year old person is allowed to die of old age."
"Four hundred years?" Shadow Master exploded. "But … I trained him for a short time when he first arrived, he was young then, he couldn't have been four hundred years old!"
"Ah, but he was. He was the same person who was Shadow Master at that time, he'd been changing things around, creating illusions to replace the old one, making new disguises to make sure that no one ever guessed. He told me a lot of that while he was training me," Harry explained.
"Well … that's a bit much to deal with, Panther, but then, you always were good at bringing up the most unbelievable stories – especially when they happened to be true ones," Shadow Master said, smiling faintly. "But why did you leave? And more importantly, why have you returned?"
"I left because I was only staying till the old Shadow Master could finish teaching me what I needed to know," Harry said with a shrug. "I came back to see what had happened in my absence. Me'n'Padfoot have other things to do Shadow Master would you believe it, he's become a teacher …" Harry laughed, as did r, knowing well Sirius's love of pranks and getting into trouble.
"Where is he teaching?" Shadow Master asked after a moment, and while the question was innocent and polite, Harry knew perfectly well what it was that was hidden behind it – a skilled attempt at finding out who 'Padfoot' had been.
Harry smiled. "Don't try it," he said, and while his smile was as friendly and calm as it had been just moments ago, his voice has a slight edge of danger to it.
Shadow Master actually gulped, slightly scared by the look in Harry's eyes, and the tone of his voice. 'Panther' had changed much from the young, almost innocent boy who'd first come here almost a year before.
"My apologies," he murmured softly after a moment. "But I am the leader of a school of law breakers, what more do you expect from me?" He asked.
"Nothing really," Harry replied with a shrug. "I should be going now, Padfoot and my friends will be getting worried," with that the portal opened behind him once more and he disappeared from the office.
Tiger/Shadow Master looked thoughtful. 'I wonder …' he thought to himself, before the sounds of a fight outside distracted him.
Back in Hogwarts Harry strode through the now silent halls, dinner had been over for sometime and he had to go to the kitchen to get something to eat.
The next day would be lessons again, and more Potions, which he wasn't really looking forward to – although the look on Snape's face when he found out Harry had done all of the work assigned to him to would be interesting.
Walking up to the Gryffindor Tower, having suffered through the almost hero-worshipping house elves, Harry paused to speak with a few of the paintings to see what had been happening that he hadn't already heard about.
There wasn't much, just Malfoy being on detention for mucking up in one of his elective classes. Harry smiled at that, then continued on his way to Gryffindor Tower.
The next morning Potions was first thing, Harry had the huge stack of assignments, but he turned them invisible and set them up in the air above the heads of the crowd, using some air elementals to keep it moving above him, but this way he had his hands free, should he need to move fast.
He ate only a light breakfast and headed to the dungeons with Ron and Hermione before anyone else, keeping a careful eye on his essays, floating high in the air.
The three of them were seated in the front of the class when the rest of the people arrived, Snape on their heels. He scowled to see Harry, then sneered when he realised that their were no essays with him.
"Well Potter, can't keep up with the work load?" The Professor asked with a sneer. He really hates me, Harry thought to himself, slightly shocked.
'I don't see anything odd about that,' James remarked. 'He just hates Potters in general, but after your time here in disguise, he hates you as a person as well, not just because of your name and blood.'
'You could be nicer, James,' Lily remarked waspishly. 'He might get over it dear,' she added to Harry.
While this internal conversation was going on, Snape was busy berating Harry for not doing his homework.
"Um, Professor?" Harry tried to break in. He tried another five times and failed, then, with a faint sigh, waved a hand, the invisibility charm fell away from his homework and they dropped a few feet so that they were hanging just in front of Snape's face.
"They are all there, and finished," Harry said calmly, the class staring at him in shock, with the exception of Ron and Hermione.
Snape gaped at the pile of essays, and then told Harry coldly to put them on the desk. Harry obeyed calmly and started on the Potion that Snape had set, again without waiting for instructions to appear on the board.
He paid very little attention to Snape for the rest of the lesson, and Snape refused to speak to him – Harry guessed that the man was angry and embarrassed at being caught out by Harry. Oh well, it was his problem.
'Yes. Now all you have to do is try to add to it,' James told him excitedly, but Lily stepped in and forbade it.
Harry heaved an internal sigh. With these two in his mind all the time, he would be lucky not to be driven insane within days. 'Hey, we heard that!' for once both of his parents said the same thing, in complete agreement. Harry ignored it completely.
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Lucky buggers. No cliffie this chapter. Oh well, I'll see what I can do next time!
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