Mage

By Cataclysmic

Chapter 13

Lecterns and Leg Injuries

When the students returned to the Great Hall its appearance had been changed greatly.

The doors to the Great Hall now led to the high end a tiered lecture theatre, at the base was an arena filled with sand and a large black platform from which it was assumed the lecture would take place, muggle-born students made comparisons between the current Great Hall and muggle movies such as Gladiator except for the fact that they were inside and had no lions running around, they didn't have a Caesar either but Dumbledore was close enough, he was a great exalted leader after all who nobody would ever question.

There was a great turnout for the lecture, teachers remarked that it had to be a miracle that the students, especially Slytherins actually came; this was an entirely optional lecture after all.

But then again few of the teachers had been required to attend either.

The Slytherins stuck together in one section of the stands, other houses however spread out and intermingled, sharing theories on what exactly was going to happen, few came close to the real nature of the demonstration, none could contemplate the idea of facing another wizard in combat without any magic at all, it was hard enough to contemplate the integration of muggle weapons with the wand, though not as hard as it was for the teachers to get their heads around.

So it was that the Great Hall was actually very loud, so loud in fact that the many teachers struggling to maintain order soon all but gave up muttering about lack of organization, Professor McGonagall was particularly flustered, so used to her ordered classroom. Sitting back at her place next to Albus Dumbledore she was not in the least surprised to find him so obviously inwardly laughing at her efforts, it was hard to miss when he refused to look at her and when he did his eyes would easily betray his feelings.

Minerva was more than a little surprised when the young man announced to be half of the new Defence combination Harry Potter drew all attention, and silence to himself with only a single cough as he entered the room.

He was rather cheerful looking, looked a lot like James at his age, yet there was something different about him, something hidden just below the surface which contradicted the image of merriness he was outwardly showing. Then again it could be that the boy had made his first appearance in her life just two days before in bloodied battle robes.

He stood casually on the podium as all eyes were fixed on him, yet he seemed totally at ease, as if addressing large crowds was an everyday occurrence. Which in a way it was.

"Hello everyone and welcome to the lecture, today's lecture was brought about by a conversation with Mr. Gavin Oldfeild at dinner tonight, I know it is rather short notice but I know after tonight you will have a lot to think about."

Harry held up his wand.

"Can anybody tell me what this is?" he asked.

The student body was dumbfounded, why he was asking such a stupid question was beyond them, was he a muggle, is that why he was defending muggle weapons, no that couldn't be right Dumbledore said a witch and a wizard from another dimension. A muggle born first year (Hufflepuff) answered his question for the stunned student body.

"It's a wand." He answered excitedly; he was the first person to answer the new teacher's question.

"Correct, in a manner of speaking, this is a magical conduit, it acts as an insulator between the wizard and magic, and it concentrates magic and allows us to perform magic correct?"

This time there was more of a reaction a series of 'yes's' echoed around the hall, some nodded their heads but there were some, mostly Ravenclaw's who looked doubtful.

"Once again I must disagree, are there not other ways to concentrate magic?" he asked leaning against a desk that had appeared out of nowhere and cocking his head to the side.

A nervous Ravenclaw sixth year raised her hand, Harry nodded his head in her direction, "What is your name?" he asked gently he didn't want to scare them, he wanted them to talk to him, to think about what was happening.

"Rachel Nobles sir." She answered not quite so nervous, she was still not completely confident at addressing her idea at the entire school.

"Now Rachel what are your thoughts on this."

"Well Professor, we must be able to unconsciously control magic, because when we were little we did wandless magic, so a wand is not essential to concentrating magic, is it?" she was a little uncertain about this they had never really discussed this subject in school before, and it was not really approached much in the library, the Ravenclaw solution to all problems, right next to studying.

"No it is not, however that is not the subject we will be covering today, its just an interesting little starter, so tell me what happens when in battle, you lose this?" he said pointing at his wand.

He was met with silence.

"So basically when you are running for your life you drop your wand and that's it, your done for is that what you are saying?" more silence

"OK, so what you are all saying is that without your wand you can't defend yourselves, there is nothing you can do? You are nothing without your wand?"

Silence, though not dumbfounded silence, interested silence.

"Today I will show you some techniques used by muggles to defend themselves, after all without your wands you are muggles right? Defenceless? WRONG, but that is not what we are here for today."

"OK I am going to show you some muggle weapons and I want you to try and tell me what it is."

He held up a dagger, and shouts of "DAGGER" lit up the hall.

"Yes this is a dagger, used in close combat or to distract your opponent coming into close combat, to get the best effect you must be close to your assailant."

"OK Next what is this?" he held up a sword, Godric's sword to be exact but they did not have to know that, of course living in the castle and having seen them all over the place the student body had no trouble identifying the object.

"Swords, there are many different types of swords there is the Long Sword," one appeared on the table and he put down Godric's sword in favour of holding up the new one,

"The long sword was a weapon used mainly during the middle and late medieval period for muggles at which time witch burnings were somewhat a fashion, wizards of the time often carried weapons as such…" he said making a sweeping gesture at the sword and the dagger on the table. "This is the reason you encounter many such souvenirs around the castle."

"Anyway back to the Long Sword, It is both an offensive and defensive weapon and can be used for parries and deflections, as well as, cuts and thrusts, cuts are delivered as slices or extremely powerful chopping blows, although mainly used with two hands it can be used with one," he said demonstrating this by skilfully handling the sword with one hand. "This allows for the use of the other free hand to cause more damage to your opponent."

"A long sword consists of a blade, a cross-guard, a handle and a pommel." He said pointing to the specific parts of the blade, "The blade comes in two basic styles, a straight cutting blade and a tapered thrusting blade, though both styles can cut and thrust. The cross-guard is generally straight, but it can be curved and its ends may be rounded, spiked or ornate. A long sword handle has enough space for two-handed use; it can be waisted and has an oval cross- section. The pommel is a counter weight to the blade and comes in many shapes and sizes. Because of this, it can be a formidable weapon in its own right, when used to strike hammer-like blows."

"Next we have the Short Sword" he said picking up the next weapon, "which is used in association with shields, not particularly useful or commonly used not a great weapon to use if you have a choice, unless you have a shield which is unlikely anyway for today so we will move on, a broadsword is a sword with a wide, straight, double-edged blade used mostly by mounted troops from the 1700's to 1800's."

"Anyway moving on to more modern times, we have a normal handgun, an AK-47, a machine gun etc, if my lovely assistant could please conjure up a target?" he said moving so as the crowd was at his back.

Hermione conjured up a target, more like a bullseye; she knew exactly what he would do with it.

Harry shot with the pistol first aiming and firing directly on target, the centre of the bullseye, next he used the AK-47 and put a ring of holes around the white ring, finally he set up the machine gun and massacred the target into tiny little bits.

Smiling he turned to the crowd, "Unfortunately I wasn't able to get or make a bomb on such short notice but I trust you have noticed that any of these weapons would be MORE than sufficient to do some damage."

"However there is one more important weapon that I have not shown you yet, one that all of you have and in the event of the loss of you wand you would STILL have."

"Anyone?"

"Yourself." He answered after no one was forthcoming.

"Huh", "What's he talking about", "Nutters"

Harry coughed again to get their attention.

"Has anyone ever heard of Martial Arts?" there was an intake of breath as some of the audience realized what he was talking about, "For those of you who don't know what we are talking about myself and Professor Granger will give a demonstration.

Hermione came back out dressed in a reasonably loose black T-shirt that cut off around her waist leaving a strip a few centimetres above her belly button which was pierced, a oddity in itself for a witch, even muggleborns as after Hogwarts they had little to no contact with muggle fashion trends and on her lower back was a tattoo of a Gryffindor lion, moving of course as most wizarding tattoos do currently it was pacing her back stopping every now and then to roar, silently of course at anything and everything, and she wore loose tracksuit pants that would not restrict her movement.

"Hand to Hand combat is probably your best chance if you lose your wand as unlike me and a few other paranoid people you are not likely to have any other weapons on you should you be attacked unexpectedly."

"OK then Hermione will be the attacker whilst I am attacked. As this is only a demonstration on hand to hand combat neither of us will use our wands"

Hermione stepped forward and began her attack at Harry who promptly stepped out of the way, thus it continued for several minutes until Harry moved into the fight, after a series of kicks and punches, not a very long one at that, that was far to fast for the student body or the teachers to follow Hermione found herself pinned beneath Harry, not that she hadn't expected that of course, she was good but Harry was the master of these kinds of things. Grinning she accepted his hand and pulled herself back onto her feet before kicking him in the lower stomach causing him to double over in pain.

 "Let that be a lesson to you, never let your guard down, even if it is someone you know, you can never be to sure the person you are with is actually that person, you never know who will attack or where. As an old teacher told us, CONSTANT VIGILANCE of course he only told us because he had to, to maintain the character he was impersonating but it is important. Remember CONSTANT VIGILANCE, I'll let Harry get back to getting his butt kicked. Have Fun…"

 "OK well back to the lecture," said Harry still recovering from that cheap shot of Hermione's, "The next thing we are covering is magical verses muggle attacks and counterattacks, though I am not going to tell my opponent the counters, they will be covered in class for anyone that is interested."

 "Now I am not recommending that any of you try this, if you want to learn come to me, do not try this on your own, it is far to dangerous and must be worked up to gradually."

As he talked Harry gathered up his weapons, he leaned towards the older weapons, such as the sword and the dagger, as well as some unconventional muggle items which normally wouldn't be considered weapons, such as screw drivers and hammers, though he only kept them because it was amusing to watch people reactions to the weapons, though occasionally they proved rather effective. The AK-47 was a must.

 "Mr Oldfeild if you please," Harry said waiting for his opponent to come through the door, senses on high alert, as he expected Gavin wasted no time in attacking him with spells, luckily for Harry they were all visible and easily dodgeable, but if Mr Oldfeild was as good as they said it wouldn't take him long to work out to use invisible spells, as a curtesy gesture he send back one of his daggers aiming and achieving a small cut across the face, it wasn't aimed to injure really it was aimed to enrage, enraging his opponent would work in his advantage, he would not think as clearly, he would not notice the ground he was closing.

But the students did.

Harry moved closer, closer just a little closer, swinging his sword he made a significant cut in his upper wand arm, not enough to sever if, but down to the bone, blood splattered across the sand and Gavin temporarily fell to the ground, he was beaten…

Or maybe not, though not accustomed to fighting with a physical injury, he would not allow himself to be beaten so easily, ignoring the pain from his arm, the fact that it would not respond to his commands, he grabbed his wand with his other hand, it was a rare skill and one that took a lot of training, using your wand with both hands but as an Auror he had honed the skill so if something like this ever happen he would not be defenceless.

And he shot off the first spell that came to his mind.

"Impedimenta"

And it hit.

"Stupefy"

And it hit…

The sword, Harry's movement had slowed but not enough to seriously benefit Mr Oldfeild he was slower now, but he was so fast normally that he still had the advantage.

The stunning spell reflected back at Mr Oldfeild whose eyes widened in disbelief, nothing but a shield, a very advanced one should reflect magic back at him, but he didn't have time to worry about this because all to soon the spell had hit.

And he had lost.

Harry limped over and leaned against one of the walls, the Impedimenta curse had hit him in the leg, one injured not to long ago, and it hurt, but that at least was something he was used to, taking a deep breath and promising himself he would risk a trip to Madame Pomfrey later he stepped forward to finish his lecture, showing no more visible signs of a limp, or pain.

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Wings beat up and down in a steady rhythm as the owl trekked across the country, sun barely above the horizon, she had been flying most of the night, the owl was tired but this was its duty, to deliver letters to wherever its master told it to. The owl didn't mind much it enjoyed its life, delivering her wizards letters gave her life meaning, unlike the mundane undignified wild owls that did nothing but eat sleep and procreate.

She was currently delivering a letter to Sirius Black, a rather strange character but one to which her normally quite intelligent master wrote to on a regular basis, though for the last few years he had not been particularly happy with Black's replies, temper tantrums following replies he had recently been very happy with Blacks correspondence, she couldn't understand why, fickle humans, but it happened, she was still wary of this Black character, waiting for him to upset her master again.

She was quite surprised by Black's reaction to the letter, she could not read so the only indication she ever got of what the letters she carried contained was the reactions of the wizards receiving them, and the odd occasion when they would read them aloud to themselves, she wasn't particularly interested in what the letters contained anyway, except when it upset her master. Anyway Blacks reaction was very strange, absent was the lately normal cheerful attitude, absent was the previous seething anger, all he was doing was sitting and gaping, opening and closing his mouth and not making a sound.

She was quite annoyed her orders had been to wait for a reply, but the wizard didn't look like he would be doing so anytime soon, well without encouragement at least.

Hovering back up into the air, she perched herself on his shoulder and started nibbling his ear.

Nothing.

Well if he wouldn't respond she would have to resort to more drastic methods, pausing for a second to think about her actions and deciding she had no choice with her beak still poised either side of his ear she bit down hard.

Sirius displayed no sign that the bite had hurt, even though the bite had managed to draw a little blood, but he did seem slightly more with it than he had a moment before.

"I have a Godson…" he whispered to himself, nothing could have prepared him for the letter from James, the letter that told him that his Godson, Harry was alive, was here, was living and breathing, sure he was from another dimension but he was still his Godson. James had asked in a slightly accusatory manner whether he had told anyone about the scar, they had had problems since Harry's death with impersonators trying to gain the Potter fortune, especially when it became apparent that no other heir would be forthcoming, years of trying and they had not been able to have another child.

But now there was Harry, he was sure it was, the scar was the proof, no one had known but the three of them, and none of them had told anyone.

His Godson was here, he had to see him, he stood up, dislodging the owl perched on his shoulder in the process, he took no notice, he swept forward and pulled on a cloak making for the fireplace, he would Floo to Hogsmeade and trek up to the castle he could be there in half and hour just in time for breakfast.

He stopped, a few years ago he would have been out the door without a care in the world, but now there was Melody, and Melody would not be happy if he just went running off without telling her first.

Thus he had hit a dilemma, he had to tell Melody where he was going and why, but Melody was asleep and HATED to be woken, he couldn't leave a note because she wouldn't think to look for one, so he had two choices, wait for Mel to wake up or to wake Mel up so he could leave as soon as possible.

Sirius Black was not one for waiting so he decided on the latter.

Walking into his room he couldn't help but smile at his wife, she was starting to really show and looked really peaceful in her sleep, but he had to go, and he had to go now, he had to wake her…

He hesitated, Mel got really mad when you woke her up, but then again whenever he had woken her before it hadn't been with anything important, it wouldn't be that bad, Mel would understand, wouldn't she?

Yes she would understand, she would understand if she took the time to let him explain instead of attempting to murder him on the spot.

Timidly he shook her awake, being timid was not a trait that suited Sirius Black very well, but he wasn't stupid, Melody was not known for being her serene self in the morning, it would not do to wake her up with his old maraudering ways, because although serene in nature at all times except the mornings Melody Black had a horrible temper when you got on her bad side, couple that with a rather large vocabulary of spells, curses, hexes and jinxes and you did not have a good combination.

Melody opened her eyes blearily to see her husband hovering over her with a worried expression on his face, she found herself doing something entirely out of character, she woke herself up immediately, she had never seen Sirius look so strange, it was like he was unsure of what exactly he should be feeling at the moment, and he was looking worried an emotion that didn't sit well with Sirius unless there was something REALLY wrong, and he wouldn't have woken her unless there was something REALLY wrong.

"What happened?" she asked holding back the tears, she was sure it was going to be really bad, Sirius never acted seriously without a good reason even though he was somewhat more subdued these days he was always happy-go-lucky and determined to see the good side of things, even when Voldemort had been around he had kept his spirits high, not that they had been together then, they had been working for the same side and had met each other in passing but nothing more until years years later, when they had finally got together both had wondered why they hadn't done it sooner, noticed each other sooner.

She was somewhat shocked when he managed a really big smile and brandished the piece of parchment that had come by owl only ten minutes earlier, she snatched then letter and read it through, read it through once, read it through twice before reading it through a third time.

She was confused, she couldn't quite get the idea of inter-dimensional travel through her head, she couldn't seem to get anything through her head she was too shocked, and then she noticed that Sirius had his travelling cloak on.

She smiled.

"And where exactly are you going?" she asked struggling to keep the grin off her face, forgetting the complicated stuff for a few minutes she went back to her favourite past-time, teasing Sirius.

"To Hogwarts…" he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"In your pyjamas?"

"My Pyjama's?"

"Yes you do realize that you are still wearing them right?"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Hermione was not happy, she had been working on her new project, happily tinkering away with her quill and parchment trying to find a solution to the impossible, when an OWL interrupts her musing, an OWL.

Did people ever even stop to think that she might be working when they sent these working interrupting spawn of the devil creatures that had interrupted her line of thought and WOULD NOT STOP PECKING HER FINGERS.

Sure she had been ignoring the bird hoping it would go away, but it wouldn't, and now her poor fingers were in desperate need of bandaids. Not that she would use bandaids of course, she was a witch, she didn't need bandaids…

Resigning herself to correspondence with the rest of the human race, well the wizarding world the untied the letter from the bird, which promptly flew off, putting the letter back down on the table unopened Hermione went back to her work, pleased with herself having beaten the annoying creature, however after awhile curiosity got the better of her and she opened the letter, just to see who was writing, Hermione didn't have many friends, in fact Hermione did not really have ANY friends, she had acquaintances.

She was surprised when she noticed the Hogwarts seal but she was even more surprised by the contents of the letter.

Dear Ms Granger,

We are sorry to disturb your work, (so you should be) but there has been a rather strange occurrence at Hogwarts and your presence is required as soon as you have a spare moment, please proceed directly to my office upon your arrival, the password is Pringles.

Sincerely

Albus Dumbledore

What would an occurrence at Hogwarts have to do with her?

I mean sure she knew every little fact every published in Hogwarts: A History but that really didn't mean much, she was sure lots of people had, not that she would really know, she didn't associate with others well.

Maybe they needed her help with something; maybe they had made a new and exciting discovery for her to study! With that lovely thought she apparated to Hogsmeade, eager to meet with the Headmaster and learn of the reason she was being called to Hogwarts.

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"Hermione, I don't care if I miss breakfast I know where the kitchens are, can you please just leave me alone and let me sleep!"

"Harry it would be rude to miss breakfast, I am sure a lot of people will want to talk to you this morning after your little display last night, we have only been here two days it would be bad manners not to go to Breakfast with everybody else."

"I don't care I just want to sleep." He replied grumpily. It wasn't entirely a lie, he did want to sleep, but getting up would require putting weight on his leg, something he was dreading at the moment, Hermione knew about the leg injury he had incurred from a stray curse a few months ago, it had nearly severed his leg, and it was a weak spot, what she didn't know was that it was currently hurting from a spell hitting it last night in the exact same place it had broken.

Hermione however was not going to be sympathetic, because she didn't know, and if Harry had anything to do with it, wouldn't know that he was hurting.

So when she dragged the covers of the bed and started pulling at his arms, he got up with only minor protests, sleepiness acting as a cover for the faint wince he could not prevent as weight was put onto his injured leg.

Two days, they had been here for two days, it was kind of hard to believe but it was true, this was the third day here and if it was anything like the last two he thought he might just go and crawl back into bed.

Bed now there was a lovely thought, it was warm, it was inviting. And now thanks to Hermione it was totally void of himself.

He had tried to tell her that he didn't care about missing Breakfast, but she didn't seem to be listening.

With a sigh he finished getting dressed, sparing one last glace at the oh-so-appealing bed before trudging out the door after Hermione making sure to keep the wince off his face and the limp out of his walk.

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Remus was up not long after dawn as per usual, tottering around in his kitchen he sat down at the table calmly drinking his tea and waiting for his daughter Lana to wake up.

Lana Lupin was his adopted daughter, as a lycanthrope he was unable to have any children of his own lest he pass on his illness, it was not illegal as it had been some years ago for a lycanthrope to have children, however the idea of passing on his curse to a child was something Remus would ever even contemplate; in fact he would not have contemplated adopting a child had it not been for Lana's situation.

Lana Lupin had began her life as a normal pureblood child, her family though pure-blooded and with a purebloods prejudice was her family, she had had parents who loved her, a little brother and an older sister, life had been great at the Manor until she had managed to get herself bitten by a werewolf one night when she had been wandering the grounds after dark, her parents shown Lana their true colours, while appearing to love their child unconditionally, they had abandoned her, left her at an orphanage with no warnings to the muggle administrators. After all who would willingly take in a monster, no precautions taken for the full moon, left her there without a second thought, left her there to murder everyone and everything within her range, left her there to be disposed of when she offered proof that she was a dangerous beast in need of disposal, Remus had never forgiven them for that, in fact he rarely spared them a glance when passing them at the Ministry and even then it was to glare at them. James had tried to get them fired but unfortunately politics had gotten in the way and they had managed to keep their prominent positions at the Ministry, but they had not gotten off without a severe fine.

It was lucky indeed that Lana as a pure-blood witch who had heard bedtime stories about all manner of dark dangerous creatures had heard stories about 'evil werewolves' and though only six had understood that that was what she now was, a dark creature and understood the basic the dangers of being a werewolf in human company especially on the night of the full moon when she 'turned into the wolfie me', how she had understood this at the tender age of six this still baffled Remus to this day, he didn't think he would have been able to but Lana had, Lana had run away before she could do any damage to the human population, human muggle population, her parents had left her in a muggle orphanage stating later when he had caught up with them that if their daughter had to be a monster she could at least remove some of that muggle filth from their world. Lana however had known, Lana did not want to become anymore of a 'monster' than she already was, she had run away into the woods nearby, where she had somehow survived three weeks alone and gotten herself a long way into the wilderness.

Remus had found her when he went wondering in the woods, in wolf form in perfect control due to the wolfsbane potion; he had been horrified when he had found the young werewolf cub in the forest, even more horrified when he noticed how thin she was, at first she had been distrustful, but soon when she realised he was like her she had calmed down.

That night he had made a rather interesting discovery, the wolfsbane, it seemed only removed the wolf's violent tendencies the maternal/paternal instincts remained intact. He had taken the little werewolf pup in his mouth and taken her back to his cabin, Lana not making the slightest protest to stop him.

That had been three years ago, now nine Lana now only had another two years before she could got to Hogwarts, gone were the days it was a revolutionary thing for werewolves to attend the school, if there was a werewolf found young enough to go, it would be able to go, no questions asked.

And so it was that Remus found himself quite startled when a small barn owl, obviously very young just old enough to carry letters swooping down on his breakfast table, it was not an unusual occurrence for Remus to receive owls, it was however very rare for one to appear on his breakfast table and knock down the vase full of daisies Lana had brought in yesterday. It was also not a regular occurrence for owls to appear quite this early, the earliest he had every received an owl was just after breakfast, Hogwarts time, certainly not just after dawn.

His work at the Ministry though important was never very urgent, more political then practical, helping bring down prejudices built over many generations. Thus Remus found himself very curious as to just who would write to him at this time in the morning, Remus after reading the letter was just as shocked as Sirius had been, he however did not sit there and gape, Remus made his way towards his extensive library, determined to find out whether this was possible or not.

And when Lana came down to breakfast and read the note she knew exactly where Remus was, when in doubt look in the library after all, calmly she buttered her toast and settled down to breakfast, comfortable with the fact that her dad would find the answer he was looking for and excited about meeting the great Harry Potter all grown up that she had heard Sirius and Remus talking about in hushed tones when they thought she wasn't listening.