Harry Potter & the Knights of the Old

Chapter II: Setting the Stage

By TGB

oOOOo

Next morning at 6.00 Harry was already awake anticipating the arrival of the letters. To cut the time short he decided to go for his morning jog, though about half an hour before his usual schedule, unfortunately routine proved itself to be completely uneventful, well not counting the usual rude comments from a member of Order on duty, apparently Harry disrupted their breakfast, which immensely lifted Harry's mood. Sighting Harry returned to his prison of a home.

Back there he was greeted by a loathing glare of uncle and absolutely terrified squeak of Dudley, who somehow during his years at Smeltings took even more liking of a swine. First time the ground became to shake Harry was actually scared, but in reality it wasn't earthquake it was just "little" Duddydims rushing for breakfast, where he was occupied two chairs ("Poor boy, they make such small furniture, this days", complained Petunia) as Harry was predicting. Finally Harry knew why he was so successful as a boxer – nobody could simply get through solid layers of lard around his body to hurt him and after tiring his opponents it was easy to defeat them. All diets were thrown to hell after a particularly loud hysteria provided by Dudley about "this freak being able to eat more than me". Harry was really starting to worry about Dudley's health, another pair of pounds and he would have problems walking, it's actually a great irony that his aunt and uncle did as much damage to their nephew as to their only son, if not more. But lack of understanding always was Dursleys family trait and will prove to be their undoing someday.

As for Dudley he was spending his days in similar almost boring manner, terrorizing and beating neighborhood kids, caught by his more agile friends, ruining the newly restored park, smoking, being especially high. "Well at least someone keeps faith in conservative family values", Harry smirked to himself. He was awfully interested how the hell Dursleys managed to retain the blind eye on their son's activities, they were rescuing him from prison every odd evening. At least after the dementor accident he was primally afraid of Harry, afraid that he somehow will repeat the effect those foul creatures had on him. Occasionally there were some strange sounds from his room at night, which made Harry shudder at the only thought about it (lets just say that Seamus would have described it as 'polishing one's wand').

Harry was shook out of sudden desire to vomit by a plate of bacon appearing suddenly right under his nose, but that was just aunt Petunia giving him breakfast, so Harry ate it never raising his eyes from the plate, he purely loathed to stay in one house (even in one room) with Dursleys (he even considered to surrender himself to Voldemort), but none of them had any choice, Harry was perfectly safe with them, because of his mother sacrifice and via verse. So after his little breakfast he decided to take a quick shower, in spite the weather he used hot water, it was absolutely delightful feeling, as if all the weight from his shoulders was lifted, all his problems were solved and he was free ("Just like flying, apart from mad bludgers of course"). But Harry was far from it, from the scraps of information he was provided by the Order (to keep him from total isolation), he made a conclusion that he was going to have a full holidays stay at the Dursleys, "Joy", Harry noted with his voice dripping with sarcasm. It's a pity there was no one near to hear this witty remark.

Voldemort it seemed was keeping a low profile, which was definitely bad news, from the information he managed to salvage from his visions and newspapers, Voldemort was regrouping his forces, gathering more followers and inviting dark wizards from all over the world, trying to gain support of different dark creatures, he idea was to bide his time to attack when the wizarding society will relax a bit (probably on Diagon Alley). His plans concerning the Boy-Who-Should-Have-Ruddy-Died-Already-And-Most-Likely-Will ("That's me", Harry thought grimly), were unclear, without the prophesy doing anything about him would prove to be unwise, so Dark Lord planned to conquer the world first and only after that deal with him ("Nice plan, absolutely ingenious in its innovation"). But it was good, it provided some more time for preparations to be done.

Speaking of preparations. Harry noticed Hedwig flying right into his window and settling with a proud hoot on his desk, Harry noticed a small package and a letter tied to her leg. The letter was opened first:

Hello 'O great master of hideously unclean speech', we yield to you, brighten the existence of our unworthy selves with a word of you wisdom. And honestly Harry you surprised us back there we found some even we never knew and the suggestions you were implying were hard to imagine (not to the lack of trying), let alone do. Hmm, now to the serious (enough) part.

Business is simply booming and it isn't even the shopping for school time, and you, my friend, are the reason of all it, so how can we refuse you such a little wish.

George and I (Fred) had no problems finding the needed item, though we never knew you studied arithmancy (wink, wink), but delivering is more tricky, enclosed in the parcel is the special wizarding delivery service beacon, this item is usually used to move furniture and other stuff from one place to another, but we thought it is more than suitable to use it in your situation. To activate it you just need to place it on the floor and your new shiny null magic field generator will be there. The beacons are common enough so you shouldn't have any problems with the ministry, also with generator you would find a (cough) manual and you another special request, produced by yours truly. To which we made some really special modification to be used in muggle world, all of which you can read in the instructions included. Enjoy yourself.

Eternal Trouble Makers in Chief, Honorary Members of Prank Your Teacher League and just good guys. (A/N Parody for Dumbledore's mail signature)

Fred and George

Harry quickly unpacked the beacon. It looked like a perfect fist size crystal with a little flame raging inside. No instructions. Thinking about the usual way of activating the gadgets in the wizarding world Harry reached for his wand (in his back pockets, "Screw Moody") and tapped it. The following events will forever remain in Harry's memory; he will have nightmares about it at least once a year, always awaking with the "I will kill those (censored) Weasleys" scream.

The little flame became to grow, quickly crossing the crystals boundaries and engulfing Harry and half of the room in flames, fortunately for the sake of this story flames were common to the floo ones, meaning they were a comfortable temperature, at this moment he had enough sense to drop the crystal and move out of the flames territory, which proved to be damn right decision because right after that the flames previously bright red turned green, gathering total resemblance to the floo network flames, and a massive package slowly grew out of the floor.

Warily, thinking about twins - very warily, Harry opened the package, and slowly looked inside. Surprisingly nothing blew into his face, but there was note with brightly yellow "BOO!!!" inscription, removing the note, he found two packages, one big one small. Opening the bigger package he found the whole goal of the delivery.

The null magic field generator was simply beautiful. It looked like sorcerer's staff from muggle fiction, a masterpiece of a smith, a beauty that couldn't be made without magic: several threads of metal, which reminded strongly silver, were intervened in the most intricate way imaginable, dividing into three separate structures both on the top and the bottom of an almost six feet construction, through the whole device were three threads which differed from the others, their material was black as much as Voldemort's soul was, almost sucking the light around it, bending it to his will. Harry couldn't figure out the purpose of those. However he didn't pay much attention to them, because he was immediately fascinated by the orb on the top of the generator, in contrast with ones they used for divination this was completely clear and transparent, Harry didn't even notice it at first glance. Tearing his gave from the generator, Harry searched for the manual. Which happened to be a book several times thicker than the full English dictionary with notes.

Suddenly Harry wasn't looking forward to using it at all, but he had faith.

To his relief, while he looked through the table of content, most of the book was devoted to possible uses of this generator in arithmancy, Hermione would have been fascinated by the whole thing, but Harry quickly skipped that part and moved to the more practical stuff, like activation of the generator. The use of the generator looked to be "piece of cake". In its automatic mode of work, the generator needed only a tap from the wizard's wand and it would automatically adjust to the size of the room it was placed in, it had some interesting features as being able to filter the magical disturbances allowing some spells to go in and to let some leave the field, of course all curses just shatter the shield, unfortunately. Harry thanked god that the old bastard placed another ward on the house this summer, this one restricted all ways of magical observation of the content of the house (not that he knew of the current use of it), so he won't be caught by Moody.

Remembering of the crystal (which was still lying on the floor, though the fire in it died out), Harry cautiously pushed the generator in the vertical position and quickly tapped the sphere. The sphere immediately filled with magic and started to pulse like a grotesque heart, the black threads slowly became bright blue and started to produce some substance, which quickly consumed the generator and started to grow rapidly, soon the blue bubble filled half of the room, absorbing everything in it's ways, almost immediately Harry regretted neglecting manual, as the bubble was forcing him to the wall. Expecting the inevitable doom, he closed his eyes and waited.

…

…

…

…

…

And nothing happened. So feeling safe enough to open his eyes Harry found himself in his usual room, except the walls gained a slight blue shade. Harry felt the air it self around him hollow. As much as it would upset Dursleys the air around them was filled with magic, the whole world around them was filled with magic, they just never understood it. A feeling of loneliness crept slowly upon him. "Well at least I read the warning part of the manual", for this was one of the possible consequence of the generator use: sudden and unexplainable depression, which happened because of total isolation from magic, it wasn't dangerous for wizards just uncomfortable. "Could have been worse though", the description of possible mishaps and damage was a good fifty pages long (with colorful pictures). So Harry was even less anticipating some of them. However right one he was thirsty to try the new found freedom.

Pointing his wand at his "bed" he pictured the gryffindor's dormitory one and muttered a single word:

-Novo

Harry learned that it actually pays of to review five years worth transfiguration notes, cause he had a unique talent (A/N Posses this myself), he could write down what teachers said not actually paying attention to it (Binns, of course was an exception, never in his right mind he would listen him), letting his mind wander thinking about something absolutely not linked to the subject, often Quidditch. His bed quickly morphed, the resemblance was nearly perfect, the wood texture didn't match, but Harry wasn't concentrating on it at all, he just wanted to have the general picture. "Looks like I got another feature from my father, apart from appearance", he smirked, referring to his father's rather considerable talent in transfiguration, "Wonder why it never shown before" adding this question on his ever-growing list he decided to check out his new bed. He laid there for some time enjoying the simple pleasure of having comfortable living conditions at Dursleys first time in his life. No matter how comfy it was Harry had a lot of work left, so he rose from his bed quickly, taking a quick peck of the view out of his window (the sky appeared even bluer due to the generator's field) and decided to … "Wait a minute". Harry's gaze turned to the window again as a feeling of dread overwhelmed him.

"This is an owl out there", Harry guessed. "I am awaiting no mail, Order uses Fawkes, Hedwig is here, so that means …", he continued, "… OH MY GOD". If where was fear now it turned into a full blown terror, because "It is a ministry owl" , and that meant, "I am expulsed", so "My wand will be snapped", and that meant "I will be defenseless", and even worse "Hermione would kill me and all Wealseys will help her". So Harry did the most sensible thing one can do in that situation – ran around the room panicking, quickly a plan formed in his mind, "Now all I need is to know in which direction Mexico is and …" he never ended this thought, for the owl arrived, bringing his doom in it's beak, landing silently on his desk, it was clearly amused with Harry's antics. With his body gone numb and hands shaking the recipient accepted the letter, the owl immediately left.

It was a remarkable sight: famous Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, the hero of the magical world was holding a the letter with more fear than he felt confronting Voldemort himself. Shifting his gaze from the slowly dissipating in the sky owl to the letter Harry nearly fainted, after initial shock he sweared pretty severely to the void around him.

After all this wasn't the letter from the ministry ("Thank you god"), this was just the letter from Flourish & Blott's. With all excitement of the day Harry completely forgot about that possibility, even if he considered it he would have never assumed such fast reply. Suddenly feeling himself weak because of the stress Harry settled on his "new" bed and opened the letter:

Mr. Potter we are delighted to hear of your interest in our production.

We had similar request from some of the Hogwarts students so we doubt it will be a problem. Apart from this letter, you can find our stock flyer with a few extras from our special collection, we hold a great faith in you Mr. Potter and hope this could prove to be a help for you. After you took a look at our stock you must just tap the books of you choice and say the incantation "Exsto" and they will be portkeyed right to you, the money to cover expenses would be directly taken from your vault (When you touch the flyer it automatically records your magical signature).

Flourish & Blott's staff

"Bet Hermione was one", mused Harry. The envelop seemed to be magically enlarged to have enough place for the 'flyer'. The 'flyer' was about the size of the average books. Second time this day he regretted his decisions, and for the second time this day everything proved to be much easier than it looked. Harry always wondered how such things can be achieved without muggle technologies, because the book turned to be a magical version of internet shop, in the table of content you must choose the book category and the book will open on section page, all the books of your choice are placed in your 'cart'. Harry browsed through the book for some time.

Having the opportunity to buy all his school books in advance he didn't pass it, so they became his choice, even the potions newt course, through he knew he most surely didn't gain 'O', but he hoped for the best. He also desided to gave some extra transfiguration (which included "Theory beyond the transfiguration"; "Human transfiguration"; "Conjuring – as hard as it sounds") and charms ("Most powerful charms"; "A thousand years achievements in charms"; "Household charms") books. Harry didn't see sense in buying modern defense against Dark Arts books, but bought books on dueling and ancient auror's spells. In the mind defense section he chose books about Occlumency ("The git could have recommended one") misfortunately Legilemensy is considered Dark Art, so the most Harry could lay his hands on was a book of theory, not the practical guide he wanted, similar situation was with books about Apparation (this ones because of age restrictions).

Being satisfied with the selection he closed the flyer grabbed his wand, tapped it and muttered "Exsto". Nothing happened – Harry forgot to bring down the shield. Quickly understanding it he tapped the sphere two times and magic in it slowly dimmed as the shield bubble was absorbed into the generator again. "Exsto", once again he said. This time however a stack of books appeared hanging in the air right over the flyer, which was in Harry's hand, after some time it crashed right on his right leg (A/N Due to the NC-17 content of the following 128 words I can't really post it, so its open for the speculations ).

After the time it took calm down, Harry checked the list of the book and grabbed the theory of occlumency one to read.

Another series of profanities followed this time entirely focused on one greasy potions professor. The occlumency wasn't the art of defending your title as the name suggested, it was only its consequence at the last stages of the art mastering. Occlumency was the art of setting one's mind in order. Dumbledore once said "To a well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure". Should Harry die right one it would be just another eternity of sufferings, because he had no well-organized mind whatsoever. An ability to recall every last thing you read, remember everything that happened to you in your life (including most early childhood), control emotions – that is occlumency. The method used by Snape simply ruined some natural shields he had, the ones that were always up without Harry knowing it, forcing him to spend energy on maintaining them or when throwing of the attacks ("And did this on the orders of the man who supposedly cares of my well being"). If the book was truthful Harry was now not only very vulnerable to attack but also unbalanced ("What would Rita Skeeter made of it", he mused) and potentially violent ("Have to say Ron that Persy was right in this one"). Like Ron Harry began to question Snape's loyalties. But he didn't have time for it.

Right now the immediate objective was to sort occlumency. For that he got the practical guide for occlumency from the stack. First chapter was strangely familiar, "Clear your mind", Harry chuckled, three words which cost another man's life, three words which almost lead to his doom, three words for which people will pay, dearly. Banishing dark thoughts, he started to read about different occlumency techniques.

There were different planes of human consciousness. So-called mind plane, magic plane, and connections plane (A/N Though I could add some if I want). Occlumency helped to gain access to the mind plane. The easiest way to do it was to take special drugs which would bring your mind on that plane almost immediately, as always with easy solutions those drugs were not only restricted but highly addictive. The other way was more time consuming and required almost daily exercise with no one hundred percent guarantee of success. "Oh, well, better than nothing though", Harry shuddered at the thought of other Voldemort possession.

With newly reinforced determination he started to get ready for his exercises. The most comfortable surroundings for this was a completely dark room with a single, preferably little light source. "I guess Dursleys won't miss their basement". It was genuinely difficult task to sneak through the house with the thing that looked like magical staff without being seen, but Harry wasn't son of James Potter for nothing, so after some time he found himself in Dursley's basement. "Well, it is certainly dark here", said Harry, observing his surroundings, "also cold, damp and smelly", he added as an afterthought. This needed more time than he originally thought it would. Quickly running to gather his newly bought charms book, "Always wanted to know how Mrs. Weasley does those miracles about the house", he then returned to his future refugee.

He never expected but this actually turned to be more of a challenge than he ever thought it will be. The household charms wasn't just cleaning, cooking, etc… , it was actually more constructing a habitable area than anything else. Harry never really thought how the magical houses were built (or how they still existed in case of the Burrow), nor how they were supplied by water, heat. Well Harry never really thought about lots of things, this particular theme was just brought up. The book was dedicated to the art (Harry couldn't find a better word) which required much devotion and skill, the things Harry didn't currently possessed, he had neither power nor such degree of control of his powers even to try most of the spells in this book. However he already had a ready space that just needed some (he looked around: "Well, a lot of") finishing touches. The following several hours in life of one Harry Potter were not only educative but productive.

As soon as the generator was activated and a now familiar bubble filled the room, Harry began the work. First thing first was the sufficient illumination, so Harry just transfigured some rubbish into torches and fitted them on the walls using mild sticking charms ("It was a definitely good idea to reread my charms notes"), after that igniting them with a little "Incendio". He found a lot; the basement appeared to be the storage of Duddydims junk after he lost his second bedrooms, which Harry now inhabited. Two more broken telles, three bicycles, a pair of computers, some other stuff, even if he could fix all of it Harry couldn't think of possible uses of anything here, "After all - I am a ruddy wizard". So without a second thought he simply vanished all of the junk (Snape did it so much last year with his potions, that he learned the wand movements and incantation by heart). That is when the real work started. Transfiguring the earth in mahogany wasn't as easy as it sounds, nor easy was creating proper ventilation, neither constructing fireplace and fitting it into ventilation system, nor transfiguring some of the left junk into furniture. Decorating the whole thing in Gryffindor colors was perhaps the easiest and most satisfying thing to do. For the fireplace he conjured Hermione's blue flames she taught him after the Devil Snare accident.

The place actually looked cozy; it looked like a clumsy recreation of gryffindor's common room. Though Harry didn't even use some more complex magic, the place suited his needs for now. Harry sat in the newly transfigured armchair, which he was trying to have a maximum resemblance to Dumbledore's chairs as possible ("Maybe I don't like the man, but there is no sense denying one thing – he knows comfortable furniture"), and prepared for his exercise.

With one swift wave of his wand the lights of the torches died out, leaving the strange blue flames as the only source of light. So he gazed into the fire concentrating every piece of his conscience on the flames, feeding it with all his emotions, all his worried, all his thoughts. Soon there was nothing but the flames. Harry started to sank deeper into his mind, slowly falling into a meditation.

He would have succeeded if it weren't for a loud bang from one Dudley's TVs. Harry quickly awakened from his almost meditative state. "How the heck I forgot about silencing wards", he cursed himself, "And I was so close". More reflexively than anything Harry swore: violently, colorfully, creatively. Deciding it was too much for one day he slowly made his way to his bedroom. Surprisingly for Harry it was almost dawn, he missed his lunch and supper, so he decided just to sleep till the next day.

In his room he noticed the bright yellow package with three intertwined Ws. Without the second thought and any hesitation he opened the package. This time it was a mistake, cause this package actually exploded right into his face. "Should get used to it by now Potter", said Harry referring to whole shit that happens in his life (A/N ). As the number of black spots obscuring his vision radically dropped he was able to see a bright purple firework snitch zooming around his bedroom in a manner that reminded of Pig, Ron's owl that always seemed to be in sugar induced euphoria. When Harry tried to catch it the firework just dissolved into nothing. As Harry turned to look at the content of the package he caught image of himself on the polished surface of his wardrobe he was petrified. "Those little bastards anticipated me loosing guard!!!", still swearing he slowly touched his newly platinum blond hair, obviously to remind him of his school rival Draco "Ferret" Malfoy.

Absolutely furious he grabbed the note from twins, while mentally dismembering both of them with bare hands:

Hi Harry.

Hope to find you in good health and with new hairstyle (the effect would last for an hour at max, so don't worry). Take a good look at our new totally exclusive line of production called "Drive your muggle relatives insane", first package of this line is delivered with this letter. Especially for you we have installed special feature: the prank would be removed from the memory of all muggles who saw it as soon as it is finished, so don't worry for consequences and give them hell for us.

Your Personal Fairies

The Twin Disaster

If Harry wanted to kill them a moment before now he wanted to kiss them, but suddenly a strange voice penetrated his mind and said in commanding manner: "THERE WILL BE NO SLASH!!!". Even his Imperio curse immunity didn't help, so he had to compel. Still wondering who the hell was that powerful entity that had such a degree of control in this world, he concentrated on the task at hand.

As Harry rummaged through the package an evil smile started to appear on his face, similar one can be seen on Voldemort when he was in process of killing someone very-very-very slowly. "Tomorrow the life of Dursleys will be turned into the hell on earth", said Harry solemnly, "Not that they will remember it anyway", he added as an explanation of his outright evil behaviour, "However I will", he added, evil smirk returning to his face.

A/N Well this is all for now, hope you enjoyed it, sorry for slow posting but don't have much free time.

Oh and I am LOOKING FOR A BETA: I think I am capable of correcting my grammar and style mistakes but I need someone who will analyze my work, look for mistakes, discrepancy with JK's books and suggest some fresh ideas to me.

Another question if you like my Harry. Well R&R.