Harry Potter and the Rising War

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Chapter Eight: Tryouts begin! And Snape

'So your telling me that Hermione remembers most of what she was saying and doing because she didn't want to do most of it, but Ron doesn't because the feeling was there for the imperius to feed off of?' Harry asked the headmaster that evening during one of their classes.

'I suspect Mr Weasley had feelings of the sort against you, but not to the extent to which were displayed. He may have been jealous of your fame and the newspaper article among other things. But that is the basic idea, yes' Dumbledore confirmed.

'I see…' Harry said trailing off as he starting thinking over the past couple of times he and Ron and Hermione had been together. If he hadn't have been so blinded by his rage he would have figured it out with out the aid of the magic sight spell. The fact that Ron felt partly as he acted he couldn't ignore, but nor could he ignore the fact that he himself had retaliated with violence when he should have had it figured out.

'Harry there is no use in brooding over things. We both know that most people aspire to have what they do not, you for instance crave a loving family, Mr Weasley, fame and money and Ms Granger wants knowledge. Please don't be too hard on them.' Dumbledore said.

'Well I'm not about to hug them and welcome them back straight away, whether or not they meant it, it still hurt and they both at least had to feel some anger towards me for the curse to be as strong, I know for a fact that if it were any other thing, like say wear a pink dress, then Hermione would have fought it off and Ron would at least have put up resistance.' Harry replied, then he got up and said 'Any way I think we are here for a lesson'.

They spent the rest of the allotted time practicing on techniques Harry could use to better control the fire, and willing the size of it to change. When they were nearing the end of the lesson however Dumbledore called it to an end and Harry seated himself across from Dumbledore.

'Excellent Harry your progress is exceptional; I predict you will have a complete mastery of the ability towards the end of the school year or beginning of next. Now onto other business, as you know things have been pretty quiet with Voldemort so there has not been much to report from the order, but I will update you on what we know so far. It appears that Riddle is having trouble learning necromancy which is excellent news for us, but it will be only a matter of time until he rectifies this. As for his apprentice, Malfoy jnr voldemort is merely teaching him the dark arts, we believe this is so that he has a foundation knowledge for when the time comes that voldemort will begin training him as more than a death eater. It is suspected that he will become a threat when voldemort puts him through more transformations, apparently he has already increased Malfoy's magic level to about the same amount as you had when I came to explain about your transformation. There is no way to convict or apprehend Malfoy as he has legitimate reasons for his comings and goings. I think that is everything. Now I believe it is time for you to be heading off to bed, or at least to your common room.' Dumbledore said as he lifted himself from the seat. Harry bid the headmaster good night and then set off towards the common room. Half way there however Harry decoded to take a detour and go to the library. When he entered the corridor the library was accessed by he turned himself invisible and went in. Harry spent a few minutes searching through the shelves for any interesting books and came upon a book on experimental body transformational techniques and took it.

When he got back to the common room Harry began looking through the book. It at first seemed to be boring but as he got further on it started to deal with other things that took his interest, like duel animagi and theories about how it is possible and how to go about it. Apparently many had tried and failed to become one only achieving their first form with a slight alteration like longer legs, or no legs at all. Harry spent most of the night researching and comparing with other books on theories and creating some of his own, even going as far as thinking up some spells that might aid him in achieving this goal. It was nearly 3 am when Harry stumbled into bed and entered his magic which he was immediately grateful for the effect it had on him.

The next day there was an article in the newspaper about him, much to his annoyance. It read:

Boy-Who-Lived, Boy-Who-Betrayed?

It came to this reporters attention yesterday evening that the boy-who-lived Harry Potter has admitted to studying the dark arts. It is also rumoured that Harry Potter was also responsible for a death recently, all though details are sketchy we know that the so called hero of the wizarding world may have sided with you-know-who from as early as last year when he lead some of his fellow students to the ministry of magic to battle death-eaters. This reported asks the question 'did Potter attempt to lead them to their deaths?' minister of magic, Cornelius Fudge had this to say about the matter. 'Potter has always been in the spotlight, I expect that this is merely nothing more than an attempt at doing so. There is no way that he is a dark wizard, however I am not denying the fact that he is not dangerous' so does this mean that Potter is an up and coming dark lord? Or is he just a mentally unstable boy? You decide.

'bloody brilliant! Hey Ron, you wanted to be in the paper, now you have it. Congratulations I hope it was worth it!' Harry shouted at him and chucked the paper at his head.

 The rest of the day and the morning after that seemed to pass quickly and Harry got by without having to talk too much with Ron and Hermione or put the spot light on himself. Apparently Ron and Hermione spent much of the rest of the night trying to convince the school that what they said wasn't true, but the damage had been done and quite a large number remained believing the lies so Harry now resolved to keep his head down and stay out of the spot light.

When the time finally came for Harry to go to the national stadium he had not only butterflies in his stomach but also anything else that could fly.

'You nervous about today?' Remus had asked. The only reply he got was a disbelieving star from Harry.

'Of course stupid me, well lets get going then, hold onto this and brace yourself.' Remus told him after handing him a bent and muddy spoon. A few seconds after touching it Harry felt the all too familiar pull of a port key and scrunched his eyes up as he felt the ground disappear and only opened them again when it reappeared.

Harry looked around his surroundings and saw that he was in an office, a fairly messy office with papers scattered all over the place and various pictures lining the wall of past teams by the looks of them. Just then Drew walked in and took a seat behind his desk after greeting Harry and Remus. 'Practice will begin in a few minutes but I wanted to give you your uniform first and the broom you will be riding. Its a broom designed specifically for seekers, its called the lightning bolt excel, you will have to tell me what wand you have for us to find the right broom.'

'Why is that?' Remus asked interested

'The new series relies not only on the magic enchantments of the broom but of the user also so it can be used better to the riders needs. This means that the broom is made somewhat like a wand in terms of a core, for example mine would have been a dragon heart string if I was using a similar broom for beaters.' Drew explained.

'Okay then, well my core is phoenix feather' Harry said. Drew nodded his head and walked off into a room to the side of his desk and came out a few minutes latter carrying a broom that looked similar to his firebolt but had subtle differences like the size of it, the overall shape and the feel.

'If you will follow me I will show you to the changing rooms and the we can begin' Drew said as he handed the broom to Harry and then they left the office. It didn't take long for them to get to the changing rooms and for Harry to be introduced to the team.

'These two are the first team beaters, Nigel and Pete, those three are the first team chasers, Sam, Nick and Sandra and this is the first team seeker Jonathan and keeper Steve E. Over there are the second team beaters Charlie and Cassie, chasers over there are Shelly, Kristy and Kelly and keeper Steve G. Every one this is Harry' Drew introduced. Once all of the introductions were over with Harry got changed and they all went out to the field. To say that Harry was overwhelmed was an understatement; the pitch was about the same size as Hogwarts' but the stands all around it were like nothing Harry had ever seen before, not even for any of the tasks for the Tri-wizard tournament.

'Don't worry about the stands Harry, once you're in the air you'll forget that they're even there' Jonathan said as he noticed the look on Harry's face. Harry just nodded dumbly and turned to the coach who was introduced as Mr Stokes.

'Okay everyone listen up, you all know the drill today, we have a new member of the team and if he shows us he is good enough then he will be playing first team. Now before we get into a game I want some laps, now go!' he commanded. Harry could tell he had been doing his job for a long time by the way he was at ease with commanding the team. Harry mounted his broom and was off into the air quicker than he had ever been. It took a few moments for him to adjust to the broom but soon enough he knew how it worked and felt completely at ease with it. E tried putting on a bust of speed to see if it would draw from his magic too much, luckily it didn't so he wouldn't have an unfair advantage, but that didn't mean that he went slow on the broom, it was the opposite, he was flying faster than he even imagined possible. Once all of the team landed they sorted themselves into first and second team with second team wearing bibs and got into a game. For the first few minutes of the game Harry just observed how the individual teams worked together and how Jonathan did his job as seeker. Once he got the gist of how things worked within the teams Harry began taking a bigger role in the game, he was taking out plays of the other team and blocking the beaters view, whilst all of the time looking out for the snitch. It was about 20 minutes into the game when he saw Jonathan go into a dive so Harry naturally followed expecting that he had seen the snitch, but when he saw Jonathan look back at him Harry pulled out of the dive, he hadn't seen the snitch and when Jonathan looked back Harry knew that he hadn't either because it was too risky taking your eyes off it for even a second. It was lucky however that Harry did pull out of the dive when he did because he saw the snitch at the other end of the pitch near his keeper so Harry sped off after unfortunately the first team had seen what he was going to do and flew in front of him leaving only a small enough gap for his broom to get through and not enough room for him to move to his left or right or fly above or below them so thinking quickly Harry aimed his broom for the small gap and at the last possible moment he stood on his broom and jumped over the wall the other team had put up and landed back on his broom which had just started to slow down. Once he was securely back on his broom Harry put on an extra burst of speed and flew straight for the left hand hoop where the snitch now was but as he approached he saw Pete on the other side just about to receive a bludger and send it back towards Harry who just kept heading for the snitch. When Harry was just about a meter away from it the bludger was sent his way and would get there just after he caught the snitch. Harry reached out of the air and caught the snitch but at the sae time he tightened his legs around the broom and reached up with his left hand and grabbed the hoop which resulted in pulling Harry and his broom up in an arc. When Harry was sure he was out of danger he let go of the hoop and twisted himself so he was upright again. He did it, he caught the snitch Harry caught the snitch before Jonathan. Landing quickly so he didn't fall off his broom from excitement Harry ran over to where Mr Stokes, Drew and Remus were standing grinning like a maniac.

'I did it, I caught it!' Harry breathed out.

'Never mind that, that's some of the best flying I've seen since Charlie Weasley!' Drew said, and then Mr Stokes said 'Very well done, this is the sort of thing that the team needs, I think we might well have the English answer to Viktor Krum' and shook Harry's hand, by this time the rest of the team had joined them all.

'That was some awesome flying Harry, you have real talent' Kristy said

'I thought you were going to hurtle straight into us when we blocked you, that was one of the gutsiest moves I've ever seen done, who taught it to you?' Nick asked

'No one, it's the first time I done it, I thought of it while I was heading for you guys.' Harry said. The team couldn't believe that Harry had so much skill and was such a quick thinker but Remus assured them that he had never seen such moves from Harry when he saw him play for the school. Jonathan walked up to Harry on the way back into the changing rooms and shook his hand, congratulating him on a superb job. Harry was relieved that there was no hard feelings about it all.

When they were all showered and changed Harry was escorted to Mr Stokes' office by Drew who discussing plays with Harry. When they got there Drew told him he would see Harry at the next practice and walked back down the corridor so Harry turned to the door in front of him an knocked, when Mr Stokes said 'enter' Harry opened the door and walked in. he was a little surprised to see Remus already there but didn't show it. He seated himself in the chair next to Remus when Mr Stokes offered.

'That was an excellent show today Harry and I would say that you have more than proven yourself worthy of the first team. Now we're here to discuss your contract and all of the other things that come with being a Quidditch star.' Mr Stokes began. The meeting lasted for an hour before they had the contract signed and merchandise sorted. Harry didn't mind any of it except for the newspaper interviews he had to give, not after every game, but certainly after every other game. Mr Stokes had said that he could refuse to answer any questions that he didn't feel comfortable with which made Harry feel a little better about it all.

Once they were back at Hogwarts Harry headed straight up to the Gryffindor tower to listen to some music and do more research and homework, all though it was still before dinner Harry still had the evening lesson off to relax but instead he was going to practice his animagi transformation.

'Where have you been all afternoon?' Ginny asked when Harry came through the portrait hole. Ron and Hermione were also listening but pretending not to but Harry still noticed it. He simply replied 'You'll find out tomorrow I expect.' And headed up to his dorm. He spent the rest of the afternoon listening to Linkin Park and Greenday while doing more experimentation with new spells and the dual animagi transformation.

The next few weeks passed by in relative normalcy for Harry, as he expected the day after his first practice there was a headline in the Daily Prophet about England's new star seeker (apparently the paper had changed its opinion on Harry again after Dumbledore sent them a letter notifying them about the situation). The school was split between hounding Harry and resentment and Harry was sure Ron fell into the latter group but he didn't mind, he would expect Ron to want what Harry had and didn't hold it against him. He still had yet to make up with both him and Hermione but he still didn't feel that they deserved it yet. In his lessons with Dumbledore he was progressing extremely quickly. He was learning new spells the fastest, usually he would learn up to 4 new spells a session providing they weren't very draining or hard to complete. The Occulmency lessons were going well also, with Harry's new ability to spend time in his magical core he was able to put up blocks easier because he was at peace and without emotions. On the weekend lessons that weren't spent doing Occulmency he was working on apparation which Harry seemed to have no trouble at all with. Dumbledore was so impressed with Harry's progress that he taught Harry how to make his aura appear and how to control it. This it seemed was more of a challenge for Harry because each time he pulled his aura around his body it would attack anything that was near it. He eventually got it under control and found that he could tell it what to attack and control how badly to attack it. The wandless magic was beginning to come along now, he could summon his wand back to him and cast a weak stupefy spell or similar spells which was a big step up from a small lumos spell at the beginning of the term. The elemental training was also coming along very well now and he was able to create rings of fire and walls and also shoot streams of fire from his palms. The animagi transformation was now complete also and Harry was doing a study on it with the help of Dumbledore to see if he could manipulate his magic to give himself another form. Things were going so well Harry felt stupid for not expecting something to go wrong when it finally did. It was during a duelling class when he was picked to duel with Ron by Snape. This wouldn't have been a problem if Harry still didn't get angered every time he looked at Ron or Hermione s when the duel began he blocked all of Ron's attempted curses easily and then conjured up a small stick, then he transfigured the stick into a wooden centaur which he commanded to attack Ron and disarm him. Unfortunately they centaur could feel Harry's anger towards Ron so when it attacked Ron came out with a broken arm and another broken nose. Harry quickly banished the centaur and helped Ron up apologising to him and explained what had happened. Ron seemed to understand and just waved it off with his good arm, unfortunately Snape didn't understand though.

'Potter what did you think you were doing?' Snape shouted at him.

'I'm sorry professor but the centaur got out of control and…' Harry began trying to explain that he didn't specifically tell it to hurt Ron.

'I don't want to hear it Potter, you aren't going to worm yourself out of this one. Your arrogance overwhelms me. You think that I care what your excuse is that you purposefully injured a fellow student?' Snape sneered

'But…' Harry began but again he was cut off.

'Don't talk back to me Potter. Goodness knows what the headmaster sees in you to hold you in such high esteem, all I see is a spoilt, arrogant brat. Just like your father and your good for nothing godfather!' he shouted at Harry

'You will not talk about my parents or godfather!' Harry snapped at Snape

'What was that Potter? Telling me what I will and will not do? I don't think so. But I will tell you something, you need to see the truth about your father and his pathetic friend, see how they were big headed attention seeking arrogant little spoilt children, just like you!' Snape said, he didn't seem to notice Harry trembling with anger, but the students did and they could feel the energy radiating off Harry who luckily had controlled his magic at emotional times. The students all moved away from Harry as a collective group. Not even bothering to argue the point with Snape Harry began running toward Snape who didn't seem to comprehend what was happening until Harry leapt at him, but instead of Harry landing on Snape there was a massive lion standing on top of him with its teeth bared and his claws out on his right paw that was only an inch or so away from Snape's throat. Harry saw the fear on his professor's face and roared in a fierce way which seemed to make the look on his face even more comical than what it was already. It was then that Dumbledore walked into the room and broke the two up.

'What is going on in here?!? Harry get of your professor and go to my office immediately, and you too Severus, my office now. The rest of you are dismissed. Now go!' Dumbledore said in a raised, and angry, voice.

'Now explain what was going on just now!' Dumbledore said once they were all collected in their office.

'Potter attacked me' Snape said

'Why did you attack Professor Snape Harry?' Dumbledore asked, his voice not softening a single bit.

'He was insulting me and my family just because I made a small mistake when I was in a duel with Ron.' Harry explained.

'Severus what do you have to say for yourself?' Dumbledore asked him as he once again settled his piercing blue eyes on him.

'The small mistake was one that put Weasley in the hospital wing with a broken arm and nose. It was Potter's blind arrogance that caused all of this. He thought he could handle a spell that was far beyond him.' Snape said.

'What spell?' Dumbledore asked

'I conjured up a wooden centaur and sent it to attack Ron and disarm him, only my emotions caused the attack to be more brutal than what it should be.' Harry told the headmaster.

'I see. well I think it would do you both good to apologise to each other and to have some time apart. Harry you shall be tutored in potions by me and you will be withdrawn from the duelling lesson.' Dumbledore told them both.

'Well go on then, you are both here so I think there is no better time for an apology than now!' he prompted them.

'I'm sorry' they both muttered at the same time.

'I can see that I will not get anything better from you both so that will have to do. Severus if there is anything else then you are dismissed.' Said the headmaster. When Snape had left the room Dumbledore began to lecture Harry on his emotions and when to hold them back. After h was finished with his lecture they began their regular lesson with the fire elemental ability. Toward the end Dumbledore asked Harry to sit with him again.

'You do realise Harry that now you will have to register with the ministry that you are an animagus?' Dumbledore asked him.

'Yes sir, but it doesn't matter anyway, riddle knew about me learning when I attacked Wormtail with my paws.' Harry told him

'Yes quite right. Well onto another topic, I think you have control enough over your element to carry on practicing on your own. The evening lessons from now on will be spent on anything I see fit from duelling to tactics to history. Your real apprentice training will begin and I shall try and incorporate your research into it. If we make any real progress with it I should like to try some of the more useful transformations and spells. Is that okay with you?' Dumbledore asked him.

'Yes professor that is fine. Thank you for all of your help.' Harry said getting up, knowing that the lesson and discussion was over with. He spent the rest of the night researching more about the animagi and his magical core, including the relationship between the two.

It appeared that news of what happened had travelled quickly over the school by the next morning and Harry got many congratulations from people he didn't even know. It looked like the students were beginning to warm to him again, until that is the next thing that is said bad about him reaches their ears, but he didn't care anymore what they said. It was during breakfast the next morning when Cho Chang came up to Harry.

'Hey Harry, I heard what happened yesterday. I didn't know you were an animagus?' she said to him.

'Hello Cho and yes I have been for about a week now. Is there something you want?' Harry said to her not even bothering to sound polite.

'Well I thought you might want to give us another go?' she said confidently. Harry suppressed the urge to laugh in her face and said 'Sorry Cho but I don't think were good together'

'What do you mean? Are you saying no to me?' she asked incredulously

'That's exactly what I'm saying to you.' Harry confirmed.

'But no one says no to me, I mean why would they?' she asked him. She seemed stunned at the revelation that someone said no to going out with her.

'Because we don't have anything in common except Quidditch and I know nothing about you and you only want me because I am an international Quidditch star and the boy-who-lived. Now please can I finish my breakfast?' Harry said to her. She seemed so shocked that she just turned away and stalked off without saying anything. Most of the guys around Harry were shocked and the girls were laughing.

'I wouldn't have believed that had happened if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes!' Ron said to Harry. Not wanting to or having the energy to stay mad at any of them anymore Harry gave in, smiled and said. 'Well someone had to do it sooner or later'

'So does this mean we're talking again?' Hermione asked hopefully.

'Yeah it does, life is too short to hold a grudge.'

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          A/N: there it is, another chapter done. Sorry if the quality isn't as great as usual but it isn't so easy for me to write Quidditch games. Thanks for all the great reviews keep reading and hope you all enjoyed this chapter.

Thanks to (Hermionegreen, Tsaui: I hope this makes the whole cop-out imperius curse thing more bearable. Athenakitty, Lassy: you asked for more Ron bashin and you got more (however little), ocpawnmaster1: thanks for the great review, im glad you think its believable and enjoying the story so far. Nefertiri Riddle: thank you for the complement :D I didn't think the chapter was as good as it could have been, but im happy you thought it was so good:D Slimpun: sorry you were disappointed with the turn out but I like to keep this as close to the books as possible while not having Harry as such a wuss:D and about the Harry/Ginny thing, sorry but im a major major Harry Ginny shipper, so much so that I tend not to read any other stories with other ships :S (I know I should but there you go) TuxedoMac: thank you for the review, its one of my favourites now =D I was going to get rid of the trio permenantly but I changed my mind when I started writing, it just wouldn't be Harry potter without Ron and Hermione. Thanks for the review Potter Reader and Rhinmjr. MaidenMasherV: I may have more jealous Ron later or but for now I think ill have the golden trio. As for Draco being good or evil I think evil, its more in his character, however I believe J K Rowling will just have Malfoy as the school bully, nothing more. Thanks for all the reviews guys I appreciate it a lot!!!

Until next time.

                   GG