Disclaimer: I own nothing; it all belongs to J.K.Rowling. I'm just borrowing the characters to play with for a while. This is for pleasure only, no profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.

CHAPTER FIVE

Tonks had just left to drop off copies of the article in the post, and now Hermione had an hour to kill before heading over to Grimmauld Place for the meeting. She decided she should be as prepared as possible, and fired up her geek-provided special search program. This time there was a new number one returned in the results.

"Paris Milton and Harry Potter XXX Sex Video 39.95? What on earth…" Hermione couldn't believe the things on the internet these days.

Hermione looked down at her computer screen thoughtfully. "That can't be right."

Apparently she was starting an argument with her computer. "I mean Harry would never…."

The computer maintained its silence. "Would he?"

Hermione shook her head. "Now I'm just being silly." The computer showed it was in agreement by maintaining its silence. "Must be some other Harry Potter," she lied to herself.

The computer just stared back at Hermione. "Well, it does kind of sound like something Harry might do…and I really should follow up any leads, right?"

The computer gave Hermione no reassurances.

"Alright, fine." Hermione had a made a firm and well-reasoned decision.

"Click Here if you're over 18…yes, yes, yes, I am…oh my!" A few unexpected windows popped up surprising Hermione.

"Oh good lord. CLOSE! No! Don't open more windows!" The computer continued to spite Hermione.

"That is disgusting! Close! Close! Close! STOP! For the love of all that's good!" The computer paid no mind to Hermione's requests.

"Ewww! She is not 18! And neither is that horse! Close! Close! Close!"

The computer had figured out a trick it seems. Whenever you click to close a window, it could instead open three new windows, including one with the exact same page you just closed. "This is so wrong. Oh geez. 119 windows open? Oh dear. I really do not want to know if that was a picture of my neighbor's wife." The computer continued to mock Hermione in silence and more windows kept opening.

"Oh for Merlin's sake, Stupefy!" Hermione exclaimed and stunned her computer. Apparently, the computer felt this was fighting dirty and responded by making some loud crunching sounds and emitted a puff of smoke.

"Not again." Hermione whined to her no longer fighting back computer. "Reparo?" Hermione tried with no response. She thought quietly and tapped her upper lip with the tip of her wand. "Hmm…Ennervate?" Surprisingly, this worked. Well a little. The computer managed to power back up and turn on. After a few notes that were not terribly useful to the witch, Hermione spotted an all too familiar message. "INVALID SYSTEM DISK: NO KEYBOARD CONNECTED: (A)bort, (R)etry, (I)gnore?"

Oddly enough Hermione tried hitting "A", "R", and "I" on the keyboard multiple times before giving up when the obviously still upset computer made no response. "Oh geez that is the most useful error message I've ever seen." Hermione could only shake her head in frustration.

She double-checked that she wasn't dialed in, and got a little saddened when she remembered why she wasn't. She picked up her telephone and dialed Memory 3. "Hi mom!"

"Hello Hermione. How are you doing?"

"Splendid. And have I ever mentioned how brilliant you are for getting extended warranties?"

"Again Hermione? This is the third time in less than two weeks."

"Yes, yes. I know. I'm really not meaning to do this."

"Didn't your father warn you about those websites?"

"It wasn't those! I …oh never mind. Just please call it in."

"Alright honey."

"Gotta go. Thanks Mom. Love you."

Hermione looked over at her still slightly smoldering computer. "I hate you Harry Potter."

Hermione arrived into the kitchen of Number 12 Grimmauld Place to find it nearly full. It was mandatory for a few people Hermione knew, but she didn't know if many others were going to show up. Well it seemed like there were quite a few here to discuss the Harry Hunt. Hermione walked over next to Tonks, who had saved her a seat in between her and Ron. They were giggling and laughing about something.

"Alright Hermione, I know you had to do more research so you could be even more prepared, so what ridiculous incredible new story do you have to share with us now?"

Hermione got a bit flustered, "I do not have to do more research."

"If you just want to save it for the meeting, then say so. Don't outright lie, Hermione." Ron said with a disapproving frown.

"I'll have you now I am not obliged or required to do more research than anyone else." An indignant Hermione scolded her friend Ron.

"You blew it up again, didn't you?" Tonks asked.

Hermione's anger couldn't hide her blush and an answer was not necessary. Ron and Tonks started laughing at her. "Hermione! That's like the third time in a week!"

"It's been almost two weeks!" Hermione corrected. "Err I mean….oh forget it."

"Let me guess. Porn windows?" Tonks asked with a smirk.

Hermione winced and nodded with her head down.

Ron's ears perked right up. "Porn windows? How do komptooters have windows? And of porn! Holy Canoli!"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Ron! They're not-"

"Stop it! No Hermione. You are not going to ruin this for me. I want to think about a komptooter with magical windows. Now shush woman." A peaceful Ron said with his eyes scrunched closed and a wide smile on his face that was getting wider.

Hermione just goggled at her friend. Tonks was quietly snickering trying to imagine what on earth Ron must be thinking.

Albus Dumbledore arrived with Nicholas Flamel and called the meeting to order.

Dumbledore began, "Thank you all for coming. I want to start off right away by clearing any worries. There are no signs of any Dark threats, and today's meeting is not intended to be one to make anyone worry or to even remind you of the need for-"

"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" Mad-Eye roared and a couple people jumped. Most members were still used to this.

"Yes. Thank you, Alastor, the need for vigilance. Merely it's been a year since we gathered officially and compared ideas or theories on the location of Mr. Potter. It also provides us an opportunity to improve our search due to the needs of Mr. Flamel.

"You may or may not have heard, but Professor Chaos has already tendered his resignation, and we once again need a DADA professor. I have pleaded with Nicholas, and he finally consented if we can help him out here today. Nicholas, perhaps you can better explain it?"

Professor Flamel nodded. "Thank you Albus. I know many of you have been struggling to help any in searches for Mr. Potter, and part of this reason is a side-effect of some secrecy oaths. Mr. Potter had several private tutors throughout his 6th and 7th years at Hogwarts, including myself, and he received secrecy oaths from us. I have since discovered, even though the primary reason was to keep knowledge of his skills and abilities from reaching the ears of Death Eaters or the Dark Lord, there also were secondary reasons. Including mainly keeping us all from realizing just how many skills and abilities he had, and how many private tutoring sessions he was actually receiving.

"Without indicating the nature of the lessons or even when and how often they met, I would like you to stand, if you are under a secrecy oath given under the guise of private tutelage, and you will see what I mean."

Nicholas remained standing. Albus stood. And then so did Severus Snape, and Hermione Granger, followed by Auror Tonks, who stood up at the same time as Kingsley Shacklebolt. Mad-Eye Moody warily stepped forward since he never had sat down in the first place. Neville Longbottom was slightly unsure if he should stand or not but chose to stand. Remus Lupin got to his feet and looked over right as Minerva McGonagall stood up. An excited to be included Dobby jumped up onto the dining table and stood.

"I know of at least one wizard not in attendance today, and heard rumors of 'others' as well. Now, the situation has come to a point, where for a variety of reasons I cannot discuss, I am in need of being released from my original secrecy oath with Mr. Potter. Unfortunately, he layered all his tutors' oaths within himself similarly, so an equal agreement between him and me is required to lift the spell for me, but in doing so, it would also lift the spell for all of you. As you may guess, this is unacceptable to Mr. Potter.

"I haggled with him a bit, and we have reached an accord though. It requires that I place a secrecy oath over all of us, and can bind it to this kitchen, but within these boundaries we can speak freely of any tutoring we may have given him. I have asked no one to leave, because I intend to leave this room free from the oath. People who you trust, who are not under the secrecy oath, may be brought into here and informed. I doubt this was Mr. Potter's intentions, but anything he doesn't specify clearly, I intend to take full advantage of.

"This is an all or nothing deal though. All of those standing must agree to the new oath, before I can have Harry release the old secrecy oaths. And I do not wish to influence anyone who prefers to keep their current oath, but if we are unable to do this, then I will not be able to take over the DADA position again. I unfortunately cannot explain it more in depth than that." Nicholas said finished with a frustrated look on his face.

A flurry of conversations started. Tonks yelled out, "Is there anyone who honestly would try and go against this? I cannot imagine anyone not wishing to be able to discuss this, if they didn't they would still go along with it and just keep quiet."

Albus smiled and Nicholas responded. "I would not imagine so, but me casting the larger blanket oath, does indeed require cooperation from the recipients, so we need to make the offer available. Not everyone involved may know me well enough or trust me with this."

Everyone standing had nodded looking at each other, though Severus looked to be bothered that the rotten Potter was getting even more attention through his absence.

"Excellent." Professor Flamel said. "Now I have here a cube that contains a triggered release of your current oaths. It will be triggered by my successful completion of a new oath, so please be aware you will feel two different spells washing over you."

Nicholas cast the oath, and the entire room became bathed in light that seemed to seep into the walls all around them. When it appeared the light had nearly gone away, the small cube that was hovering in front of Professor Flamel shot out several beams of crimson red light. One each hit everyone standing, including some that flew upwards out the ceiling theoretically. Professor Dumbledore, Professor Flamel, Tonks, and Hermione all got hit by another red light. Professor Flamel then got hit a third time. And the cube then slowly lowered and rested on the ground inert.

"Excellent! I believe it all worked. But let us test it. Miss Tonks, why were you tutoring Mr. Potter?"

"He's a bloody metamorphmagus!" Tonks blurted out and smiled to see she managed to say it. "Oh man I've been trying to say that one for a while."

A few people looked a bit shocked, even though it should have been relatively obvious by now.

Hermione spoke up. "Professor Flamel, why did some of us get hit twice, and you, sir, get hit three times?"

"I was assuming that was because you were under more than one oath." Nicholas responded.

Tonks shook her head. "I wasn't."

"Neither was I." Hermione added.

Albus pursed his lips. "I was under two."

Nicholas nodded. "And I was under three. Oh dear. I think Mr. Potter has done something else to this cube that I didn't know about."

Ron spoke up. "What is that cube anyway? I thought only Harry would have been able to release their oaths."

"Well that's what that was. Harry stored the release in the cube, and left it to be triggered by my successful completion of the new oath. It appears he snuck in something more for Miss Tonks and Miss Granger. Forgive me for a moment." And Professor Flamel moved his chair right next to Albus's as far away from the two girls in question as he could.

Seeing this response, everyone else moved back a bit too. Ron went over and stood next to Mad-Eye. He wanted to stand behind him, but Mad-Eye kept throwing curses over his shoulder at him.

Hermione looked over at her partner in exile. "Why does Harry do this to us? What have we done to him?"

Tonks was looking around the room. "I dunno Hermy. But he's somewhere. Laughing at us no doubt."

Apparently he wasn't alone though as Remus and Dobby were laughing at them too. An irritated Tonks exclaimed, "Oh fine, stay away you cowards. Anyways…speak up people. Who else tutored Harry and in what?"

They were all looking around at each other. Some of them seemed reluctant to betray any trusts Harry had placed in them.

"Look. Harry has made his disappearance into one gigantic game. Him versus everyone else in the world." Hermione tried to rally them together.

Remus was snickering. "Yeah and he's winning."

"Yes, he is. Thank you Remus, now stuff a skrewt in it please. And he's allowed us to talk here, so he intends for us to work together. He wants us to share his secrets. So I will start. Harry is an elemental and I helped train him in controlling the Air and the Fire elements. He was easily a master or a First Class by the end of 6th year. And halfway through 7th year we stopped because there wasn't anything he hadn't done that we could find."

Neville Longbottom stood up. "Harry helped me discover I was an Earth Elemental. We sort of learned about it together, even though he was always a step ahead of me."

Dobby raised his hand, and Albus kindly called on him to speak. "Master Harry was able to mimic House elf magic. Dobby teached Potty how to clean and how to pop."

"Potty?" an extremely amused Remus asked.

"When Master Harry, was doing house elf work, he was called Potty." Dobby said with pride.

"And he lets you call him Master Harry? Last I heard he wouldn't answer to you calling him Master." Remus asked.

Dobby dropped his head shyly. "Master Harry finally allows it, because he calls Dobby, 'Master Dobby' in return."

Remus just laughed and stood up. "I helped Harry learn first soundless magic, then wandless magic, then wand magic without sound or movements, and then thought magic. The closest thing to a hurdle was his thought magic is only as strong as an average wizard's normal wand magic. As you can imagine the majority of it is simply unfair to the rest of us."

The rest of the people there were beginning to understand why Harry would want to keep these things quiet. Every one of them but Remus would have written off things like wand magic without movements or thought magic as impossible.

Kingsley stood up and added "I tutored Mr. Potter in fitness, muggle fighting styles, and some limited martial arts."

Moody stomped his peg leg and got people's attention. "I trained him to track people and to move quietly and unnoticed. Maybe a few of the more destructive curses too."

Minerva cleared her throat. "Over the course of 3 months in his 6th year, Mr. Potter learned the art of the animagus transformation. It should come with little surprise he in fact has multiple forms. I know he had become a lion, an eagle, a griffin, and a golden griffin before he continued his studies on his own. But considering it should be impossible for a metamorphmagus to complete the animagus transformation, I don't think we should assume those are his only forms."

Albus took his turn. "I tutored Harry frequently throughout 6th and 7th year in a wide variety of mental disciplines, including but not limited to: Occlumency, Legilimency, Telepathy, Empathy, and what I assumed was Telekinesis. Although now I realize it may have just been a manifestation of thought magic." Albus nodded towards Remus. "And in fairness, Mr. Potter's skill and discipline are off the charts. Though discipline barely feels like an accurate term to him, when it comes naturally. He can skim exterior thoughts with Legilimency, without needing eye contact, and I was unable to detect it. I also watched him just a couple days ago, win a Scrabble tournament. I sent out Legilimens probes and read the complete mind, thoughts, and history of a muggle named Harry Potter, who grew up with loving parents named James and Lily, and who now works for a fashion magazine dressing up models in lingerie." Albus stated with a twitch in his beard. "Were it anyone else, I would be certain it was a case of mistaken identity, as I could detect nothing in the slightest to indicate the man was magical, or that his thoughts were anything less than genuine. He did wink at me when he won the tournament though."

Hermione looked curious. "So if the Headmaster tutored him in Occlumency, what did you help him with Professor Snape?"

Severus scowled the nosy girl. He would enjoy this. "He begged me to teach him the Dark Arts."

A few members gasped. Molly Weasley looked horrified.

"Good lord people. His disposition is basically the opposite of what a good Dark Arts practitioner should be. I will reluctantly admit he did master them with relative ease, but I don't believe I ever saw him use any very questionable curses or hexes. But then again, I'm sure that's exactly what he wants us to think." Severus finished sarcastically.

Some muttering continued, and Severus thought it was simply done to irritate him.

"Professor Flamel?" Hermione asked.

He seemed a bit hesitant to answer. "I gave him an introduction to Alchemy."

A lot of people were surprised at that. They had assumed it was extra dueling, or DADA practice. Alchemy was not an art just anyone could do. And, if Professor Snape was to be trusted, Harry Potter was a horrible Potions student.

Nicholas continued. "And I am under other oaths, but I will add, I do have an ongoing project with Mr. Potter, and am in infrequent communication with him."

A number of people asked him a flurry of more questions and he just shook his head. He never even said "No" or "Don't ask", he simply shook his head, unable to say anything more.

Albus stood up and called for silence. "Please stop pestering my DADA professor. I knew this would happen, and he will remain in confidential communication with Mr. Potter. He cannot pass along any notes, or give him any messages, or anything of that sort. Or at least that was the closest thing to an answer I can derive from Nicholas's responses." Albus finished with a chuckle.

Professor Flamel smiled and nodded. "Thank you Albus. I too am curious exactly where he is at the moment, and like you, would prefer to see him back at Hogwarts. It would make many things much easier."

Hermione asked, "Did anyone else tutor Harry in anything?"

Bill Weasley spoke up, "We just had a few times where I taught him some Egyptian curses. Mainly a few hours when we could slip away over the holidays. Never needed an oath though."

Filius Flitwick added "I provided him with some study aids, and practiced dueling with him after class a number of times. I always assumed he was holding back."

Madame Pomphrey put in her two knuts. "Never had formal lessons or anything, but I gave him quite a few pointers during his weekly hospital visits. Halfway through 7th year, the majority of the healing he could handle himself, and he wasn't dropping by weekly near as much. But when he did, it was usually a bit grisly."

Everyone else remained silent. Thinking about all the times they thought they had either seen or heard from Mr. Potter. No one seemed to have the first clue, except perhaps Professor Flamel, who was unable give them the first clue.

Surprisingly, it was Severus Snape who took the next step in the discovery portion of this meeting. "Raise your hand if you think you received a birthday gift or something similar from Mr. Potter."

Every person there raised their hand. And Severus plastered the snarkiest smirk he could all over his self-satisfied smitten face.