Chapter 12: Void

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"... the shadow began to creep up the bed, and I felt it ... upon me." - Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them

---

On Friday morning, there was another double lesson of Transfiguration, followed by breaktime, during which Harry managed to finish using the rods containing the remaining information on talismans and gemstones, and also copy the leftover information in the Technology section into the spare rod.

History was next, and after that was lunch (Harry allowed himself a slab of chocolate for dessert, feeling a little guilty), and then Magical Languages. Harry was still top of the class in this, and was amused to think that he was almost perfectly fluent in Mermish and Phoex, as well as far more advanced than any of the others in Telepathy - which reminded him that he would have to try it out sometime soon.

The thing that Harry was really looking forward to today though, was the first BAT class. At five o'clock, Harry and Ron said goodbye to Hermione and raced outside to the courtyard. When all the ten students were there, Captain Marcella flicked her wand in the air, making the scores from their tests appear in large gold writing, hovering several metres off the ground.

1 Harry Potter: 91

2 Seamus Finnigan: 80

3 Ron Weasley: 78

4 Cho Chang: 76

5 Ernie Macmillan: 72

6 Angelina Johnson: 72

7 Neville Longbottom: 69

8 Padma Patil: 68

9 Justin Finch-Fletchley: 66

10 Hannah Abbot: 62

"There's no Slytherins at all," Ron whispered, but Harry didn't find it very surprising. There had been few Slytherins attempting the exam in the first place, either because they'd rather be Death Eaters, or because they couldn't be bothered to attempt a class that wouldn't give them any qualifications, such as an E-Level.

In total, there were five Gryffindors - Harry was proud to see the top three were entirely his House - two Ravenclaws, and three Hufflepuffs.

"These are the scores of the exam you took," Captain O'Keifer announced, pointing at the gold writing with his own wand, before Marcella gave another flick, and it disappeared. "You lot are the top ten - and I'm quite amazed in the first place that all but two of you are fifth-years. Now, these are the rules. If you want to drop out, tell us, and you can do so. If you start provoking anyone, you'll get kicked out. If you don't help a team-mate, you'll get kicked out. If you disobey us, you get kicked out. Understand?"

A chorus of 'yes'es answered this.

"Good. Now, this class is for those of you who are planning a career as an Auror, and Unspeakable, or one of the higher-ranking Magical Law Enforcers. Or, it's just if you need to be able to defend yourself well." His eyes flicked to Harry here, before returning to the crowd of students. "You'll all be doing the same things, no matter of your age, gender or Magical power, so don't whine about anything being unfair, and we'll get along fine. For today, we'll be running a series of small tests to get an idea of how well you can do."

As the students started whispering to each other, Marcella passed him what appeared to be a long, grey wand, tapering off to a sharp point. "This," the man announced, causing instant silence to befall the students, "is a Magimeter. I'm going to ask each one of you to cast a spell using this instead of your wand. This forces you to use your most powerful magic, and instead of producing an effect such as light or knocking someone out, your top magical power will be shown. Understand?"

The class did, and Hannah Abbot was the first to test the wand; casting Lumos, '342' appeared out of her wand instead. Justin Finch-Fletchley followed, before Padma Patil; Neville, much to everyone's disbelief somehow managed to get six-hundred and thirty-four, an Enchanter; Angelina was proceeded by Ernie Macmillan, Cho Chang and then Ron were next, after whom were Seamus and then Harry, who was thrilled to find that his own unlocked power level was six-hundred and fifty-three.

After that was a small test that Harry had learned from the rod of 'Auror Testing and Training'; A bead-sized sphere, similar to the Charmometer, was used to find whether anyone had special abilities. Harry's Past-Reading ability was revealed when the orb turned lavender - he acted surprised, a little disappointed that it was no longer a secret - and the reason for Neville's power was explained; he turned out to be a Creamagus; a not particularly nice ability to have, which meant that though extremely powerful when performing a spell created by themselves, casting any other spell would be weak, probably not working at all.

The rest of the time was actually surprisingly dull; Harry had already learned much of the material from the rods, though Ron and the others were obviously trying to cram all the information into their brains.

"I didn't know it was going to be so hard," Padma wailed as they left the lesson at seven o'clock.

Ron snorted. "What, you think they just employ anyone off the street?"

They had been informed that not only would they be learning offensive, defensive, and protective magic, they would also be training their bodies (for which Harry's personal training and new diet would be a big help).

Hermione was interested by what they had learned, but still didn't wish she had joined; "I'm far too busy as it is," she told them as she added another paragraph to her History essay, which was already half a roll of parchment over the required length.

---

On Saturday, the replies from the Ministry of Magic finally arrived. Each of the trio received a giant package, each carried in by a small troop of important-looking owls.

They opened them in the Common Room, while everyone else tried to look over their shoulders and see who'd sent them such huge bundles by post, which got quite annoying. "Look at all these!" Ron breathed, as he flicked through a 'booklet', which was more like a novel, entitled 'Higher Education: What To Do?'.

Not only were there several booklets and leaflets on NEWTS, E-Levels, and GNVQs (like the Muggle ones, they stood for General National Vocational Qualifications), there were also prospectuses for several Wizarding universities - all abroad, the closest was Burgwatts in Wales - and leaflets on various careers and the qualifications needed. Harry managed to find the booklet on the possible E-Levels, and read down the list.

The usual Hogwarts subjects were there, along with Magical Culture, Law, Reporting, Cuisine, Archaeology, Music, Art, Focus Design, Focus Making, Fashion Design, Healing, Quidditch Refereeing, Architecture, Public Services and even more. Interestingly, though one of the E-Levels was Offensive Magic, there were two other E-Levels in Defensive and Protective Magic. Defensive, Harry read, included counter-curses, Patroni and such-like, while Protective covered shields and wards.

"Ooh, look at this!" Hermione said in awe, reading the prospectuses. "Galbrook has tonnes of lessons - they do OWLs, NEWTs, E-Levels and GNVQs - maybe I should go there after Hogwarts."

Ron found the same item in his own package. "Hermione," he said in disbelief, "Galbrook's in America. You seriously want to go all the way over there, just to pick up a couple more qualifications?"

"Really, Ron, it's not just that," snapped Hermione, annoyed. "Just look at the information! They've got nearly all passes for the last two decades, and very small classes, top-notch teachers; I think it was marked one of the top five schools in the West a few years ago, I'll have to check..."

Ron tapped one of the pages. "Yeah - and it's surrounded by a field of Chronomancy, so a year on the outside takes just over a week on the inside. Brilliant idea 'Mione; let your parents miss out on a whole year of your life."

Hermione quickly rechecked the writing, and even more quickly scrapped the idea. "I don't know how I could have missed that," she muttered in annoyance, before starting to read through the other prospectuses.

Harry was rapidly growing bored, so he bid farewell, and returned to the dormitory to pack away the information in his trunk, and bring out his laptop. "Now for some fun," he muttered, his mouth curving into a wicked grin. Tapping the keys rapidly, he opened up a command-screen on the computer, and using the new knowledge in his mind wrote a quick code to make himself untraceable and unnoticeable.

The laptop quickly complied, and Harry wished that every computer could be as advanced as this - it would mean Dudley would stop having screaming fits whenever he couldn't get online. The thought of Dudley made his grin even wider, as he thought of his revenge. Hacking into the intranet of Dudley's school, Smeltings, in a matter of seconds, Harry quickly argued with his conscience on whether this was a moral thing to do. The conscience lost.

Feeling as light as a feather, Harry gleefully deleted all Dudley's work, and also wrote some coding that meant when any of the teachers tried to log in themselves, they'd only find a message-box popping up, with the words 'Love from D. Dursley' in it. Dudley would probably be expelled, but revenge, he discovered, really was sweet.

He briefly considered messing up Vernon Dursley's accounts for his company, and getting him arrested for tax evasion, but decided that was too evil. Instead, he found his uncle's credit card account numbers, and subscribed to as much junk mail and magazines as possible. "Merry early Christmas," he whispered, trying to hold his laughter in.

There wasn't much he could do against Petunia, who didn't use computers except for online shopping, so instead he traced Dudley's home e-mail, found the IP address, and found his way into Dudley's home computer, where he quickly blocked all the sites where he knew his aunt shopped - Argos, Tesco, Safeways, Iceland; and finally sat back, his job done well. At another thought, he returned to the Smeltings intranet, and rewrote the results page of their website so that it looked as though everyone had failed their GCSEs.

Now he was done.

---

By the time his joy had worn off, after the first spell creation lesson (mainly theory - Harry wished the teachers would go straight on to the actual work, which would be a lot more interesting), he was feeling a little guilty about the entire 'ruin the Dursley family' thing. He finally told himself that all together, it was still far less than what they had put him through for the years of his life in their 'care', and besides - Dudley wouldn't have passed his GCSEs anyway, if he were to be quite honest. And anyway, Aunt Petunia really should cut down on home shopping.

On that thought, he used the rod to finish 'reading' the Technology section (only ten-thousand, eight-hundred and four pages remained), and ate the lunch that the House Elf (whom he discovered was called Cobbit) brought up.

Ron returned later to announce his victory and new title as Gryffindor Chess Champion (the finals had kept being put off, for such reasons as 'murder', 'daemons on the loose' and 'Quidditch try-outs') and they talked for a while about the next step in his great battle - the Inter-House Chess Cup, which didn't actually exist (but somehow Ron was still hoping to win it), the state of professional Quidditch teams, and whether they should give McGonagall a heart attack by telling her they hoped to become Dark Lords at their Careers interviews.

At seven o'clock, Neville Longbottom stuck his head around the door, and looked at Harry. "Professor Clayton wants to see you, right now," he told him worriedly. "I don't know why."

Harry went pale. He should have been more subtly, more gradual, about his sudden excellence - did the teacher now think that he had cheated? Ron obviously had the same thoughts; he looked at Harry anxiously, but the scarred boys shrugged and put on a brave face. "It's probably nothing," he said, and thanked Neville, before leaving.

Professor Clayton was waiting for Harry in his room, along with a man that Harry had never met. "You wanted to see me, sir?" Harry asked nervously as he stepped into the room, and the professor smiled reassuringly.

"Yes, come in and take a seat. Harry, this is Mr Whaits - he's on the board of examiners, and he's quite interested in how much you know about languages."

'Ohcrudohcrudohcrudohcrud,' Harry thought, though his mouth said, "Pleased to meet you," and his hand reached out to shake Mr Whaits'. The man looked about fifty or sixty; quite weedy and tall, with reading spectacles and an immaculate set of black, professional-looking robes that Harry guessed was the equivalent of a suit.

"Pleased to meet you, too," the man said, looking at Harry interestedly. "Now, I've heard you've found a sudden proficiency in Mermish, mm?"

'Ohcrudohcrudohcrudohcrud,' "Yes, sir."

"Do you know any other languages?"

'Ohcrudohcrudohcrudohcrud,' "Yes, sir." 'Oh, why did I say that, crudohcrudohcrudohcrud...'

Mr Whaits looked even more intrigued. "Oh? What else?"

Harry gave up and bit the bullet. "Phoex, and Telepathy, sir. When I bought the textbooks for the Magical Language class, I just couldn't put them down."

Neither of the men seemed to notice the sarcasm in his voice. "Excellent!" Mr Whaits cried in a pleased tone. "I don't suppose you could count to twenty in above-water Mermish, could you?"

Without having to think about it, Harry shifted his body into the correct position, took a breath, and let out a series of quiet screeches, which alternated slightly in pitch, volume and speed, which to the casual observer would look as though he had just gone mad. When he was finished, the examiner clapped, obviously impressed.

"Excellent! Absolutely excellent!" he repeated loudly, and Harry was forced to submit to a few more tests; first to give a brief introduction to his appearance and personality in underwater Mermish, then to give a short speech on his likes and dislikes in Phoex, and finally to describe the school using the mental images of Telepathy, which was a lot harder than it sounded.

As he ended, Mr Whaits was practically bobbing with excitement, while Professor Clayton had a huge grin plastered from ear to ear. "Excellent!" cried Mr Whaits for the fourth time, "My dear Mr Potter, I do believe you have a talent for languages!"

'That, or a bunch of rods,' thought Harry, wondering how he was to get out of this.

The examiner calmed down a little, and peered closely at him. "Mr Potter, it really is a waste of time continuing your lessons like this - if the rest of your vocabulary is like this, you've got even further than your excellent -" (There's that words again, thought Harry) "- professor can lead you!"

He adjusted his glasses, and beamed down at Harry. "How would you like to take your Languages OWL this week, instead of at the end of the year?"

Harry's jaw divorced his face and married the floor. "But - what about... coursework, and stuff?"

Mr Whaits waved that away impatiently. "Oh, it's not like Muggle subjects; the only coursework you do for OWLs are in Potions, and a few long-term tests in Care Of Magical Creatures and Herbology. Really, the only thing you need to do is take the exam, and if for some reason you don't do well, you can re-sit it at the normal time."

"Think about it, Harry," Professor Clayton encouraged, and Harry had to admit that it sounded like a good idea.

"When would I take the exam?" he asked slowly, wondering whether the rods had taught him quite enough

"Monday morning, in your Language lesson?" Whaits suggested, "It's a two hour exam, so you'd have to miss your break and next two lessons, I'm afraid - you can go in a separate room from the rest of the class, and I'll oversee you. What do you think?"

Harry's mind was made up. If he passed, that would be great - if he didn't (which was doubtful), he could continue the class, and re-sit the exam with everyone else. Plus, if he did pass, he'd have four more free periods a week to continue with homework, reading or training - that, and he might get an OWL before everyone else.

He glanced at Professor Clayton, who nodded. "Go for it. There's nothing to lose," the teacher said.

"I'll give it a shot, sir," Harry decided aloud, the excitement of the adults beginning to sink into him.

---

"Have you heard the news?" Harry asked Levina excitedly as he threw his Cloak down by the door. "I'm taking one of my OWLs early! Oh, and I found some really cool stuff about the rod, but that can wait."

Levina took the case of rods and frowned. "One of them's missing."

Harry glanced over them. He'd been in such a hurry that after deleting the remaining Technology section, he must have done something really stupid, and forgotten to take it out of the computer. "Oops - it must still be stuck in the laptop." he said apologetically, and Levina gave him a funny look.

"Stuck in the laptop?"

Harry's face lit up. "Yeah; that's what I wanted to tell you about the rods. You know how you can fit disks and CDs into the laptop - well, it's compatible with rods as well. You can put information in them from the computer, or erase the information already in it, so you can reuse rods over and over."

The woman looked impressed. "I didn't expect the rods to work with it. Hm... maybe some of the Techno-Magic's starting to leak out into it, and it's gaining a life of its own. That would explain it."

Harry gave her a look of horror, but she laughed. "Just kidding. They're made to work with any kind of device designed for storing information; I can't believe I didn't work out that meant it could hold rods as well. Still, that's much better - I won't have to bring up any more blank rods for you to use. You can have that one, and just keep using it. And yes, I know about you taking one of your OWLs early; all the teachers were told. Well done."

"Yeah, but I memorised it all from the rods," Harry admitted guiltily, and Levina shrugged.

"So? That was what students in Atlantis did, and no-one told them off. Having an advantage over someone means you should use it to do the best you can, not feel like you're cheating." She put the rods away, and took out the swords. "Now, I'm planning on adding a new section in the 'Learnings' menu - don't look surprised, I can update it when I want - on physical training, like sword-fighting and so on. That should boost your training forwards, since you won't be restricted to just a couple of nights a week. I'll be putting in information from the Atlantean books, so it should probably be two or three weeks before it's complete. I'd recommend that you use the rod as much as you can on that section - perhaps learn some staff fighting, as well."

"I'll have to find the section on making swords, as well," Harry added. "Do you think I can pass my OWL?"

"I'm one-hundred percent certain." Levina said, taking her position, "I'd be surprised if you got anything less than an Outstanding - all you needed on Mermish was that one textbook, and you've read three; the Telepathy - well, once you can send one picture, you can send them all; and with Phoex, I'm sure you can glean some more information from the laptop. Did you know that if you pass, you'll be only the fourth person in the entire history of Hogwarts to get an OWL before the usual time for exams?"

"How special," Harry muttered, and quickly performed a disengage and lunge to start the fight.

---

Sunday was quite normal; explaining that he would be taking his OWL the next morning (which caused no end of awe among the listeners-in), Harry made his excuses of revising, and disappeared to the dormitory. There, he used the rod to copy some more information from the 'Language' section on Phoex, and after a moment of thought, also took some information about the basic and advanced runes, which he decided would be useful for amulets.

He was sure he'd heard something outside the window at one point, but when he looked, there was nothing there. Deciding it must have been a bird, Harry returned to his work, and later to Ward Creation with his friends.

On Monday, Harry felt queasy and nauseous. "It's just nerves," Hermione told him as they reached the Languages classroom. "Good luck!" she said optimistically, before having to enter the classroom with the others, while Harry started taking deep breaths to calm himself as he waited for Mr Whaits.

When the examiner arrived a minute later, and took Harry into a small room set aside, he explained the rules. "Right now," he announced, "the time is eight-fifty. There will be an hour and a half for you to complete the exam booklet in front of you, and half an hour for you to complete an aural exam, which is when I'll ask you questions, and you'll answer them in each of the three languages. If there's any time left over, you can go back to any answers you may have missed, or check your working on your paper. The exam will start at nine o'clock, and continue on to eleven o'clock; you have ten minutes to read through your books or notes."

Harry hadn't made any notes, and there was nothing else to read in his textbooks, so he looked out of the window instead (which probably didn't fill Whaits with confidence). The Whomping Willow could be seen from this angle, trying to hit a pair of rabbits who were far too fast for it, and a few dark grey clouds carrying the dreaded Winter rain drifted slowly over the grounds.

Finally, Mr Whaits alerted Harry that the time was now nine o'clock, so he quickly turned over the booklet and wrote his name, year, house and date of birth, before scanning through the questions. As he did so, his sick feeling disappeared - these were easy! There were one-hundred and forty-five marks, as well as an extra five for spelling, punctuation and grammar. Feeling a lot better than he had for the rest of the morning, Harry skimmed easily through Section A (Mermish, forty points), paused a bit at a question on how you would communicate a warning about slippery roads in Section B (Telepathy, forty points) and thanks to the extra research he had done yesterday, found section C (Phoex, forty points) a breeze. There were twenty-five points remaining, excluding those for how well he'd written, and these were in section D, which was Mermish above-water.

When he'd finished, Harry glanced at his watch. It was eleven minutes past ten; he had nineteen minutes remaining before the aural. Knowing he wouldn't be allowed to speak or take it early, Harry passed the time by checking through his answers and spelling, as well as expanding one of his answers about Mermish body language in the hopes of gaining some extra credit.

At ten thirty, Harry moved over to the examiner's desk, where he answered five questions in each language (and here he knew he'd picked up extra marks, as he also augmented his answers by answering in Mermish above-water as well as Phoex, Telepathy, and normal Mermish).

This took the entire thirty minutes, so there was no more time to go back to previous questions, or re-check his written work. With a congratulations and a 'well done', Harry left the room feeling quite confident. Levina was right - it would be a surprise if he came away with anything less than an Outstanding.

Although there was thirty minutes left of DADA to get to, Whaits had assured him it would be fine to take the lesson off. "After all," he had said, "you're probably very stressed from the exam. Take some time off, have some fun, hm?" Now Harry did as he said, deciding have his lunch early (thankfully the teachers were all in lessons, which meant no-one caught him sneaking down to the kitchens), where he was surprisingly glad to find Dobby.

They talked for a while - Dobby insisted on calling him Harry Potter, and was annoyingly awe-struck by the ridiculous rumours that had been going around the magical community of how Harry had fought off a daemon single-handed, saving the lives of everyone in the school - before Harry remembered what he'd come down for, and requested an early dinner, which Cobbit and Dobby were only too happy to make.

Winky was nowhere in sight; Dobby informed him a little sadly that she was still unhappy about being free, and was probably drunk in her quarters; and finally Harry said good-bye, going back to Gryffindor Tower, where he whiled away the time by researching weapon-making and - when he remembered Amulet Making was later - managed to find list on the 'Information' section on the magical properties of woods, metals, and other materials.

By lunch-time, the clouds had almost covered the sky, and it looked like there was a storm on the horizon (which was proved when Ajax returned from a flight complaining loudly about how Harry wouldn't even care if he had been missing for the rest of the day and got trapped in the storm).

"How did you do? Was it hard?" Hermione asked him as soon as she and Ron returned to Gryffindor Tower.

Harry allowed himself a wide smile. "I think I did pretty well. It seemed easy, but that was probably only because I had the rods. I get the results on Friday." He did a mock-bow, and Ron grinned.

"Harry, you'd better not turn into another Hermione. Sometimes I get the feeling I'm the only sane one here."

Hermione snorted. "You? Sane? Now there's two words that don't go together."

Rushing to stop the inevitable argument, Harry latched on to a subject. "Animagus lessons tomorrow - what do you think your form's going to be?" he interrupted, hoping this would distract them.

This was a subject that was interesting to all three. Hermione's eyes glazed over. "Oh, I hope I'm a bird - I'd love to fly properly, not on a broom, but just by myself. Some kind of hawk or kestrel, perhaps."

"I want to be something fast," Ron decided slowly, "I wouldn't mind being a bird, but I can fly on my broom any time I want, especially now I'm reserve Keeper," he added with a proud expression. "What about you?"

Harry paused. He'd never actually thought about what he wanted to be. "I don't know," he finally admitted. "I'd be glad for anything, to be honest. A stag might be nice, like my dad was, but I don't really mind."

"It's a pity Malfoy's not doing the lessons," Ron mused. "We could see whether he really is a ferret."

---

Making amulets with the help of the rods was easy, Harry discovered. Thankfully, as Levina was the one teaching, she knew that Harry was far ahead of the basics she was teaching the others, and allowed him to start designing his own amulet as a practice, much to his classmates' grumbles while they tried to learn the basic runes.

Working directly onto parchment, Harry decided to make his amulet increase the wearer's powers of divination, and that it would be a necklace. Blue, which stimulated the psychic mind, and yellow for divination would be the main colours, he decided; the five herbs would be coltsfoot, five finger grass, camphor, acacia and angelica root, with essence of juniper berries used to buff the outside and enchanted to stay on rather than fade or evaporate.

Harry also chose citrine, a stone good for psychic awareness, which was yellow-coloured and so would also fit in with the necklace, as well as lapis lazuli which increased the psychic power and being blue would fit the colour scheme. Being together, they would also strengthen each other, making their effects more powerful.

This would be a simple amulet, not made on any particular day, as he would put enough power from herbs, stones and colour into it to make any more gleaned from creation during phases of the moon, or particular days, pointless. Harry chose the 'all-seeing-eye' as the main focus point of the necklace to symbolise the third-eye; sketching onto the parchment, he decided the eye would be four inches across and an inch-and-a-half high, hanging down from a gold chain that would be charmed to be alternating blue and yellow links.

The normally white part of the eye would a pale yellow, surrounded by studs of tiny lapis lazuli. The iris would be blue, with the pupil a small, round citrine inserted into the necklace. On the back of the eye, yellow silk would be stitched, with a small slit for him to insert the ground and mixed herbs, before it was completely sown. On the front, essence of juniper berries would be rubbed over and up the chain, and hanging down from the eye would be three threads; the two at the left and right sides of the eye would be yellow and would loop through two medium-sized lapis lazuli, while the blue thread dropping from the middle would hold a large citrine stone.

Harry was just deciding what type of wood or metal to make the base of the eye out of, when the lesson finally ended, and Harry was forced to pack away his design and leave with the rest of the class, most of whom were chatting excitedly about the Animagus class at five o'clock - even those who weren't going.

---

Apart from Snape making a few sneering comments about how he must think he was so special taking his OWL early, all the teachers seemed out to congratulate Harry. He couldn't see why - only the aural had been marked so far, and even those results hadn't been released, so as far as the teachers knew, he could have failed miserably.

They didn't see it that way though, so after lunch as Ron munched his way through a bag of Every Flavour Beans, and Hermione nibbled at a Pumpkin Pastry (there were still some chocolates left over from Harry's hospital stay, which Ron had refused to let to go to waste now that Harry had been sworn off such foods) Harry had to put up with Professor Sinistra and Binns coming over to commend him for excellent work.

"I mean, why did Professor Sinistra come?" Harry complained to the others. "I'm going to Astronomy tonight, so couldn't it wait until then? Honestly, I just don't understand teachers."

"They're probably all hoping that if you pass, you can use your free periods to start their lessons," Ron suggested, but as Harry pointed out, he went to History and Astronomy anyway, as well as to Transfiguration, Charms, and all the other classes the teachers had come from to congratulate him.

Harry risked a glance over to check Levina wasn't watching, and then sneaked a bit of chocolate. He felt he deserved it for managing to not only take his OWL early, but also sitting here surrounded by cakes and desserts, watching his friends eat and not doing so himse - ooh, fudge cake... no, must resist... so warm, so tasty... fight it...

"Anyway," said Hermione, interrupting Harry's internal monologue just before he gave in and threw himself at the cake. Harry didn't know whether he wanted to kiss her or hit her. "We've got Divination in a few minutes, and you know how long it takes to get up there, so we'd best get a move on."

"Carnaena hasn't left yet," pleaded Ron, but Hermione was adamant that they'd just get there early, then.

"Yeah, and remember what happened last time we left lunch early to go to Divination," Ron muttered, but he admitted defeat, and followed Harry and Hermione up to the North Tower.

The two hours of Divination today covered tarot cards, which were apparently one of the most precise branches of Divination. Harry remembered what McGonagall had said about Divination being 'one of the most imprecise branches of magic', and wondered how it were possible to have a precise branch of an imprecise branch.

The Animagus lesson was the most eagerly awaited event of the week for those who had signed up, and for good reason, as when the students entered the classroom, craning over each others shoulders and peering through gaps in the crowd to see if their vials were set out, they were thrilled to see that they were.

Unfortunately, it was still simply a pinkish liquid, though the hairs had been absorbed. McGonagall rapped her desk to gain their attention, before setting a large bag down on the table and bringing large, gnarled pieces of woods out of it, that looked as though they'd been hacked off a tree.

"The final stage in discovering your form," she announced, "is this." With that, she opened the cupboard behind her, and with the use of a levitation charm, brought out an enormous, coal-black cauldron which contained what appeared to just be water. Settling the cauldron down in front of her desk, she performed another levitation charm to put the huge pieces of wood into the water. "When I call your name," she told them, "you will take your vial, come to the front of the class, and pour your potion into the cauldron. Your Animagus form will then appear."

Ignoring the mutters and whispers of excitement, the teacher brought out a roll of parchment, adjusted her spectacles, and read out, "Bones, Susan."

Susan Bones, a Hufflepuff in Harry's year, leapt to her feet and grabbed her vial from the desk. Standing besides the wood and water filled cauldron, she pulled the stopper out of the vial and poured the liquid into it. Immediately, even though there was only a small amount of the pink liquid, it coloured the entirety of the water a rose-pink, so it was impossible to see the wood below. It bubbled for a second, and the students leaned over their desks or stood up to get a closer look. Then, rising up through the water came a perfectly-carved wooden goose, as small as a miniature figurine, but flawless in detail.

Susan gasped; the students gave a cheer; McGonagall rolled her eyes. "Honestly, it's only a bit of wood. Take it and go back to your seat." Normally this would have spoilt the moment, but everyone was too thrilled to care, and Susan returned to her desk holding the curiously dry goose and admiring it with her friends.

"Chang, Cho," was next, and Harry looked up startled. He hadn't realised that Cho was in here, but she obviously was - she poured her own potion into the water, which had faded back to transparency when the goose came out of it, and was rewarded with a wooden carving of a cat, which Harry recognised as a Siamese.

Colin Creevey was a squirrel, much to everyone's amusement, and then there were some people Harry didn't know before it went on to the 'G's. As soon as Hermione's name was called, she snatched her vial up and almost ran down the aisle to the cauldron in her eagerness to find out her form.

Her statuette was that of a swan, which was quite a surprise to the trio; Harry certainly would never have compared her personality to a swan, but he decided it just went to show that you never really knew what a person was like on the inside. There were various other people throughout, who Harry didn't know the names of, but he took notice of those people he knew. Angelina Johnson, who was also taking the class, became a thoroughbred mare, while Lee Jordan became an otter. Neville's figure was that of a rabbit with abnormally long ears.

As the letters moved on to 'P', Padma Patil found her form that of a butterfly, while her sister Parvati walked proudly back to her desk carrying a representation of a bottle-nosed dolphin, paused in mid-leap.

After Permit, Abby (a Slytherin sixth-year, whose form was a spotted hyaena), Harry's name was called, and he took his own vial up before making his way to the cauldron. He unstopped the potion, and tipped it into the water. Instead of turning the water pink, however, it changed to a strange, murky purple colour.

McGonagall immediately brandished her wand just as the purple liquid started to bubble. "Evanesco!" The purple colour vanished instantly, leaving just water and the remaining wood behind. "Potter, see me after class has finished," she said briskly, looking pale. "Come on now Richards, we haven't got all day."

Harry returned to his seat disappointed and bewildered. Why had McGonagall done that? And why had the water turned such a strange colour? "Something's up with her," Ron muttered to him, looking at the professor. She certainly seemed as though she wasn't quite all there at the moment. "I wonder why the purple water's making her act so weird?" Hermione shrugged, perplexed. She didn't have any idea either.

Dean Thomas received a miniature bear, which earned him a round of applause, and when Ron's turn finally came round, they discovered that his form was that of a wolf. After everyone was finished, McGonagall turned them out of the room even there was still ten minutes of the lesson left, and shut the door behind them before turning to Harry. "Potter, what did you do to your potion? Did you do anything different to the others?"

Harry stared at her. "I - I added my hair to it last week, like you said, and then today," he made a helpless movement, "I put it in the cauldron. I don't know why it didn't turn pink like everyone else's."

McGonagall sat down, still looking pale. "Harry," she said after a moments deliberation, and the boy began to get worried. It wasn't very often that she called him Harry, after all. "When the Aurors tested everyone for abilities, you turned out to be a Past-Reader, correct?"

Harry didn't know where this was going, but he still didn't like it. "Er - yes, professor. It turned lavender."

The teacher went slightly paler. "Ah. That's certainly the colour of a Past-Reader." she admitted, fiddling with her quill. "Harry, have you ever heard of Annumagi?"

Harry shook his head wordlessly.

"An Annumagus," McGonagall explained, still a little pale, "is an ability which gives powers much like an Animagus; however, although the 'ani' in Animagus comes the word animal, the 'annu' in Annumagus comes from the Latin for year, 'annus'." She took a deep breath, and breathed out again slowly to calm herself. "The Annumagus ability was thought to have died out along with the last person to have it, over three centuries ago. It should be completely impossible for you to have - but the results of the potion mixing shows that you have it."

Harry frowned. "But - isn't it impossible to have more than one ability?" he asked, recalling 'Rare Powers and Extinct Abilities'. McGonagall nodded.

"That's just the point. Not only has the impossible been achieved by the mere fact of you having a supposedly non-existent ability - this throws all the theories of abilities out of the window - but there's another impossibility you've managed to make possible by having not one but two of these powers; Past-Reading and Annumagus skills."

Harry quickly scanned through the information in his mind; the Annumagus wasn't mentioned in 'Rare Powers and Extinct Abilities'; he wondered what other things were missing from the book. "Professor, what is it? I mean, it obviously has something to do with being an Animagus - it is like an Instamagus, or something?"

McGonagall put the quill down and looked at Harry. "Normally, a person has one Animagus form, which suits their personality. However, an Annumagus has one form for every year since their birth. Which means that you, Harry, have fifteen Animagus forms - and next year you will have sixteen."

Harry couldn't help releasing a panicked scream at that. "What? Are you joking!"

"I'm afraid I'm not," the woman said, colour starting to return to her face. "Of course, we'll have to run another test - I'm afraid the Animagus potion won't work with an Annumagus - for some reason it needs metal instead of wood." She rose and opened the cupboard again. It was a normal storage cupboard, Harry saw, a few books stacked on the shelves, and transfigured items littering elsewhere. The teacher moved further in and opened a large drawer, bringing out some small, rusty, dented travelling cauldrons. She cast a quick cleaning spell on them until they were gleaming brass again, and Harry moved aside to let her carry them out.

"I really shouldn't do this without alerting Albus first," she admitted as she levitated the bits of remaining wood out of the cauldron, and dropped the travelling cauldrons in, "but it would be a waste of his time if it turned out to be some kind of a fluke, and you're not really an Annumagus - there. The metal should replace the wood."

"Er - Professor?" Harry suddenly remembered. "I already used my potion."

"Never mind that," the teacher said briskly as she returned to the cupboard to search through another drawer. "I do have a different type of potion that should work the same way - it's quite expensive and hard to make, and it's only for emergencies, but I think this counts as one. Ah, here it is!"

From one of the racks, she brought out a small glass bottle of a pale yellow mixture; quite thick, it moved about the glass like runny eggs, and Harry saw that there wasn't much of it - there was a little less than of the other potion.

"There's enough for one go," she told him. "Right, give me one of your hairs."

Without waiting for him, she plucked one from Harry's head herself, making him give a small yelp of pain, and added the hair to the foul-looking concoction. The hair dissolved as soon as it sank into it, turning it a nasty shade of brown. McGonagall shook the bottle a few times to mix it, before pouring it into the giant cauldron.

It slid out in thick dollops, and Harry was reminded of a slight more watery version of the Polyjuice Potion he had helped make in his second year. As soon as it hit the water, it gave a nasty fizzing noise and starting turning the water the same shade of purple that it had become slightly earlier. This was all moving slightly too fast for Harry.

"Hold on," he said desperately, "Are you sure we shouldn't wait for Dumbledore?"

His teacher was too wrapped up in the task ahead to give a verbal answer, but she gave a motion of her hand to show him she'd heard, and then a gasp. "Look!" she said, grabbing Harry by the shoulder and pulling him forwards to the cauldron. "It's starting to bubble. It'll take a bit longer than the one we used earlier, but it should work the same way. Now, if you are an Annumagus, then instead of the wood being used to create the figurine of a single animal, the metal will be used to make figurines of each form you have."

She was right - the substance was starting to bubble rapidly, faster than the potion he had used last, and something was rising up towards the surface, breaking the water as it came. The head appeared first, a brilliant, burnished brass with the potion pouring off it in tiny rivulets. As soon as the head appeared, the pair knew what it was. A king cobra, hood flared and its hissing tongue flicking at the air, endlessly staring in its captured moment.

As its body rose up, its long tail wound round and round into a spiral, gaining levels before its upright upper body and head, the brew finally ceased its ripples as the figure rose above the surface. It hovered there for a second, before Harry gave into temptation and reached out to take it so he could look closer.

It was quite light, though it was taller than the other peoples forms had been; half a foot high, it appeared ready to strike at its prey, its venomous fangs connected to poison sacs plainly visible. Being entirely brass, there was no colouring; Harry's signature mark of his scar was not there either, thankfully - he was fed up with people flicking their eyes to his scar when they met him, and he was glad to see that his form wouldn't be recognised like Ron's wolf form, which had markings like freckles on his snout.

There was no more time to admire the details; the liquid had started to bubble again, gently at first and then furiously, as though it were boiling. Out of the murky purple liquid, rose another brass statuette.

---

Out in the Forbidden Forest, Leone sat up against a gnarled oak tree and studied the roll of parchment she was holding. Honestly, did those morons up at the school really think her so stupid that she wouldn't make copies of the useful spells in the book? Here she was - she'd lost the battle, but not the war, and though the second strike would take a while to come, it was still coming. It hadn't taken her long to get back here - she was an Illusionist, after all, and accompanied by a daemon who was quite happy to kill anyone who saw her and might alert any Aurors.

She had her daemon, her scrolls containing the spells from the book, and the Myrrh Cage was safely hidden.

The plan was simple in its idea, but complicated to complete - it would take a long time to procure the ingredients, research the necessary information, and perform the ritual, and longer still for it to begin to take effect. Time didn't matter however; Natasha's body had already been cremated, impossible to raise, all thanks to Harry sodding Potter. Now, Leone had a plan for the greatest revenge possible. She would need help - or rather, someone who was so powerful and arrogant that they thought they couldn't be manipulated, who she would manipulate all the same. When it was finished, no-one could say that Potter was some kind of great Wizarding hero.

Mainly because, of course, there'd be no-one left to say anything. Leone was ambitious like that.

A few metres away, the daemon snapped the spine of the mouse it had caught, and swallowed it whole.

---

Tom had already finished reading the reports he had been sent (sometimes he considered burning down the Resistance headquarters just to be rid of the damn paperwork), and was now writing a summary for Sir Abyssay, cutting out any unimportant sections and leaving the crucial parts in.

There were a few things that had been ascertained about the MAD as it had been jokingly nick-named at the Resistance - Mysteriously Appearing Dragon - firstly, that it was not and Antipodean Opaleye, nor any one of the recognised dragon types. Secondly, that it was very unlikely it was living in the Forbidden Forest, as such a large creature would surely knock a few trees over if it landed in there, and there had been so suddenly created clearings in the past few weeks, so it was highly doubtful the dragon came from there in the first place.

Thirdly was the dragon's basic colours, size, and so on - which really came into the first section, but as these things were the only information they had managed to find, Tom was hoping to spread it out a bit to make it appear as though they knew everything except for what it had for breakfast.

Sir Abyssay would, of course, see through it, but it was worth a try.

Right; so, the amount of useful and definite information about the dragon; nil. Brilliant. He might as well hand in his resignation, everything was going so well. On top of that, there'd been no sightings of Nikastal or the daemon, which meant they could be anywhere, and on top of that was the fact that the Phoenix had managed to get ninety-one percent on his Basic Auror Training test, and the OWL he had taken - Languages - had just come in.

Tom glanced at the copy of Potter's exam, which lay half-in, half-out of the In Tray, with a fluorescent-orange Muggle sticky-note attached, saying 'Urgent! Get a load of this score! And don't forget Will's leaving-party on Thursday'. Tom sighed. His secretary had a very strange sense of humour. The main point though was - how the Hell had Potter gone from an average student to super-brain within a couple of months?

He'd got quite attached to the kid from all the reports he'd had to read about him - his latest Hospital stay thanks to Quirrel, or his slaying of a Basilisk - in fact, he was quite sorry that he was going to have to kill him.