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.

Nicholas just shook his head. "Anyways, the substance that as far as I know, only Mr. Potter has ever been able to acquire, doesn't exactly have a proper name per se, but we have been calling it…"

CHAPTER TWELVE

"…Dementor Blood."

Nicholas just smiled at the looks of shock and confusion he was getting.

Finally Albus broke the silence. "They can bleed?"

Severus's eyes were wide. "Dementors! They have blood? That's useful? And powerful?"

Nicholas smiled and said, "There are some aspects of Dementors none of us ever could have guessed and only now are they beginning to make sense."

Hermione's brow was furrowed. "Can you elaborate Nicholas? I mean we know next to nothing about Dementors, their origins, how to harm them other than driving them away with a patronus. I would never have considered that they even had blood flowing through their veins or whatever they have similar to veins."

"I am sure most of you remember that the Dementors' loyalties were highly questionable? And you may remember an attack my first year back teaching that involved some rogue Dementors under the Dark Lord's control? Mr. Potter was rumored to have been kissed and just showed back up the next day right as rain? Well apparently then, the Dementors opened communication of sorts with him. In case you were wondering, it was at his request that they solidified their position as prison guards and refused any formal alliances with the Ministry and the Dark Lord."

"I remember that! I asked him how he'd survived being kissed and the cheeky bugger told me he'd kissed the cutie back!" Remus said with wide eyes. "I thought he was just yanking my crank."

"Yes well, I believe there are limits to his ability to communicate with them. It is a shame people do not realize this, but the Dementors are not beings that enjoy or delight in torture and malice. To them it's as natural and necessary as it is for us to eat, except we almost always kill our sustenance. From what I have gathered, the majority of them are worried about rogues of their own species, and do not wish to be blamed for the actions of a few. So they are submitting themselves to Mr. Potter freely to be studied and their strengths and weaknesses to be determined. For some reason they trust Mr. Potter. And he knew if he approached most of the 'Light' side, they would ask for the execution and annihilation of the species before even trying to truly understand them."

"So have you learned anything more about Dementors that you can tell us?" Tonks asked.

"Certainly. The first and most intriguing part, which may give you some hints as to the focus of parts of our study is that Dementors possess a dormant amount of magic of that affects both time and space. As well as when coupled with certain other elements, providing an entire field of magic involving control and manipulation of time and space in ways we never considered. It is also this that has led us to one theory about their origin." Nicholas paused and saw he could still command everyone's attention.

"It is my belief, that the Dementors were created by either a Dark evil wizard, or maybe even muggle, to be a weapon. Or perhaps created out of necessity and they needed beings to withdraw excess emotions from people. I do not believe their existence with us now was intentional. But I suspect that it will be quite a long time in the future before they are actually created, and at some point after that, an aspect of their magic will be affected in such a way as to respond by throwing them back in time."

Albus's eyes began to light up with understanding.

Nicholas smiled. "Mr. Potter is not a fan of one possibility, but there is chance that he or perhaps his descendents may be involved in their creation. He is the exception to every rule, but this would possibly explain their affinity for him."

"You know it could also be that I destroyed the evil creator of them for their sake. I don't have to be the mad scientist." A familiar voice exclaimed from the Dining Hall's door.

"And the incorrigible one decides to show up," Nicholas said without even turning around.

"Harry!" a great number of voices exclaimed and jumped up to tackle the young man.

Tonks and Hermione had been in front and they both smacked headfirst into a barrier and bounced back on their bottoms. Everyone else halted their movements at this. Although Fred and George thought it looked like fun and ran headfirst into the barrier as well.

Nicholas looked ashamed. "Sorry bout that. Potty over there has so little respect for my privacy charms and barriers you may have forgotten I had that one up." A few mumbled spells and waves of his wand and a nearly invisible wall shimmered away.

"Yes, yes. Hello everybody. I wasn't planning on dropping by, but when I heard my ancient partner over there dirtying my good name I felt I had to defend my honor." Harry said smugly.

More than a few people tackled him and surrounded him with hugs. Harry was well aware of the 14 tracers that had just been placed on him too.

"Ancient partner?" an indignant DADA professor smirked. "I'm still young enough to take you to task, oh cheeky one. And while I'm at it, you do realize 'cheeky' is not a compliment."

"Maybe not in the Renaissance old-timer, but I appreciate it just the same. And take me to task? Is that a challenge?"

Nicholas smirked. "I know you showed up to keep me from saying too much more. And I'd bet you came here to show-off as usual too."

Harry grinned evilly. "Think you can handle it? I'll even stick to only using defensive magic on you." Harry's evil grin widened looking at all his friends. "No promises on the rest of these miscreants."

Nicholas looked at the others watching their byplay wondering what would be happening. "No offensive spells at me? Or indirectly at me? Now you're just plain arrogant."

Nicholas drew his wand and pushed everyone else away, and cleared a dueling area between himself and the cheeky brat crashing their party. "Not even going to draw your wand?"

Harry smiled. "Eventually. But first, I thought you'd be interested to see these," Harry put his hands together in front of him palms facing each other, and slowly pulled his hands apart. It looked as though there was an invisible string between his palms, and hanging on the sagging string was approximately two dozen small golden bands.

Nicholas's eyes were wide, "You got the rings working?"

Harry smiled. "Yup. Still needs some tweaking, but they do work. And I threw in a few extra tricks into them too."

Nicholas had an idea what was coming, but the rest of the Order had just pulled up chairs and were sitting in a row waiting to watch the upcoming exhibition.

Nicholas snapped into action, and cast a numbing charm at Harry first. Harry was way too quick, and Nicholas thought there would be a good chance his first spell would be coming back at him, so he chose one he could counter immediately.

Harry saw the spell speeding towards him, and pulled his hands back from the rings floating in front of him. He grabbed onto the left most ring with his right hand, and the right most ring with his left hand, and whipped his hands across his body, sending all the rings careening forward into a variety of directions and locations. The spell went straight through the front ring and came flying out the ring above it back in Nicholas's direction. Nicholas was able to easily dodge it.

The Order wasn't sure what they were seeing, but all the rings, Harry had just conjured all had settled into positions around the dueling area and were floating in space. Except for two, which Harry held onto one in each hand. All the rings were now about a foot in diameter, and appeared as simply hollow golden colored metal bands.

Nicholas cast a strong shield onto himself, and threw a half dozen sick fast stunners straight towards Harry. Two rings swooped down in the path of the spells, each one gobbling up two stunners. The rings closest to Nicholas tilted themselves to affect the angle that the stunners came screaming out of them straight back at Nicholas. He dodged the four stunners the rings had reflected back at him. Nicholas looked up and saw the last two stunners appeared to be bouncing back and forth between the two rings Harry was holding in front him. It almost looked like a red light saber stretched across the rings Harry was holding. Nicholas was getting nervous, and it felt a bit like the stunners were draining his magic somehow.

Harry turned the two rings sideways, and whipped his front hand up allowing one of the stunners to come straight back at Nicholas. He dodged to the left, and felt the other stunner slam into his shield from behind him. Apparently while playing with the stunners, Harry had maneuvered another ring almost directly behind Nicholas and sent the sixth stunner straight at his position if he dodged the fifth stunner.

"Very impressive, Harry. But this is what you had already discussed with me. What sort of tricks have you got?"

Harry smiled. "I've been working on a muggle disarmer I could try."

Nicholas raised an eyebrow. "How is it muggle?"

Harry got a serious look on his face. "Okay, now watch carefully." He began swinging his left arm in a circle, and was making some ridiculous hand motions. Only Harry knew they were gang signs. In truth, this was merely the distraction while another ring snuck up next to Nicholas. Harry was flinging his left arm up and down, and yelled "Abracadabra Alakazam!" And he quickly stuck his other hand straight through the ring it had been holding. His right hand appeared, coming out of the ring next to Nicholas, and quickly plucked the wand straight out of Nicholas's hand and retreated back to Harry's own body. Harry got his self-satisfied smirk, and said "Ta-da!" before taking a bow.

Nicholas was now wandless and could see he was overmatched. "This isn't even going to be fun, is it? The rings are too much of an advantage right now."

Harry smiled. "It might be fun."

Nicholas was shaking his head. "Remember no offensive magic at me directly or indirectly."

Harry said, "True." And cast a stunner straight towards Nicholas. Nicholas leapt to his left to avoid it, but his movement was unnecessary. A ring swooped down before the spell was even halfway, caught the stunner, and sent it out another ring hovering behind the audience. Moody took the spell in the back and fell forward unconscious.

Harry's eyes went wide. "Whoops. Okay. No one wakes him till I'm gone."

Nicholas was chuckling. "He needs to work on his motto it looks like."

Harry shrugged. "I thought he'd block it."

"But just for show…" Harry trailed off and quickly cast about 30 conjured snowballs and was hitting all the Order members with them through rings surrounding them. No one managed to shield themselves completely, though Albus was snowball free. Unfortunately Albus had missed the voice changing curse, when he was protecting himself from physical objects and conjured objects.

A number of wet Order members were cursing Harry's name, and discussing the possibilities with these rings, while Nicholas and Harry were laughing at them. The Headmaster calmly stood up, proud to be dry, and said "Very impressive, Harry." Unfortunately Albus didn't expect to sound like a 4 year old little girl, and he was subjected to some mocking laughter from his colleagues.

Albus cast a few spells at himself until he had countered the change in voice. "As I was saying, very impressive, Harry. Does this mean we are going to see you a lot more frequently?"

Harry just shrugged. "Doubtful. I've got a number of things keeping me busy and being a public figure is not one of them. I've been around quite a bit, even if it hasn't exactly been on the front lines, as Tonky, Hermy, and Nicky can attest to."

Harry maneuvered the rings, and stuck his hand through one in front of him and put Professor Flamel's wand into the Professor's pocket. "I'm five feet away you show off. You could just hand it to me."

"True, but it seems whenever I call you Nicky you try to hurt me, so I took the Slytherin way out."

Severus rolled his eyes. "More like the coward's way."

Harry winked at him, "You said it. Not me."

Severus shook his head. "Will you just tell me the password?"

Harry looked at him surprised. "You haven't guessed it yet?"

Severus sneered. "I guessed that the password was in parseltongue. Nothing I could try worked."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "You never thought to try 'I love Harry Potter'?"

"I did try that!"

Harry started laughing. "Good to know."

Severus closed his eyes and breathed deeply. "You know how I feel about this sort of language but … please, Mr. Potter?"

Harry shook his head. "You sound more and more like a Gryffindor every day. Next thing you know Albus will have you talking about friends."

Severus tried to let nothing show, but Albus bursting out in laughter did not help matters for him.

"Alright, Alright. I'll tell you. The password is: The Slytherinest Snivellus sycophantically sicced sieve-sided scythes on succulent succubae for six sickles." Harry said with a proud smile.

"What the! Oh come on! That's not a password, that's a pass-sentence."

Harry just raised an eyebrow at him. "The point of a password is to prevent people from getting into somewhere. Albus just does it to annoy people and declare his love of sweets."

Severus shook his head. "And calling me names. That's just low."

Harry retorted, "Are you telling me you never made any guesses at the password involving that particular moniker?"

Severus frowned. "That's not the point."

"And anyways…you're deifying me!" Harry yelled back with faux anger and a smile.

"Yeah but you made the password way before that!" Severus explained.

"Yeah but you thought it first!" Harry countered.

"No I-" Severus stopped himself and shook his head. "That doesn't count!"

"I was always informed that it is the thought that counts."

Severus snarled at the argumentative brat.

Harry decided to mollify his snarky friend. "Speaking of gifts, I heard you made the potion to help Neville's parents. Congratulations. You know a little further research and then publish your findings and I would suspect you'd be a shoe-in for an Order of Merlin."

Severus's eyes flickered at the thought of the award he'd been dying to receive just so he could rub it in his dad's face. Well, if his dad were still alive that is. But then realizing he would be there because of Potter's help takes the fun out of anything.

"Anyways people. Lovely seeing you all and I hope you appreciated the little demonstration. Don't be too hard on Nicholas." Harry pretended to whisper to them all. "He's really old and almost as barmy as Albus."

Harry smiled and continued in a regular voice. "But I unfortunately must be off, before any of you figure out a way to actually sneak an unknown tracer onto me."

More than a couple Order members' faces betrayed their emotions.

"Apprentice Dobby!" Harry called out.

Dobby appeared in a crack. "Master Harry! Merry Christmas!" He hugged Harry around the legs while Harry just smiled. "I have other plans for your gift, Apprentice Dobby, but in the meantime, I did get you this." And he happily presented Dobby with a new egg of silly putty.

Dobby took the gift with tears in his eyes, and was muttering things like "greatest … funnest … greatest … master."

Harry just said, "Happy Holidays," winked, snapped his fingers, and popped away. In his wake were a number of presents with people's names on them.

Nicholas let his senses out a bit. "Okay, so is everybody's tracer in Dobby's silly putty now? Or just the two I did?"

Albus nodded with a frown. "Silly putty, I'm pretty sure."

A few other Order members nodded and agreed.

Nicholas sighed and looked at everyone. "Should it be embarrassing at all to be shown up consistently by an impertinent child?"

Albus, Severus, Tonks, and Hermione all said "Yes." Nicholas just laughed.

Albus asked, "Nicholas?"

"Yes?"

"Those rings…"

"I cannot talk about them."

"Are they somehow linked subspaces capable of transporting magic?"

"Cannot talk."

"But they allowed physical passage of his arm."

"Not saying a word."

"And he was able to control which ones they come out of so effortlessly."

"La-di-da-di-la."

"He could catch and re-aim a spell with just a thought."

"Flintstones, meet the Flintstones."

"I mean you could theoretically catch a killing curse, and substitute another ring in a-"

"For the love of Merlin, Albus, shut up!"

The Headmaster bowed his head. "Sorry."

"He obviously was willing to show off his new toy, so you're welcome to theorize all you want. Please just leave me out of it."

Nicholas looked at the variety of awe, frustration, and humor on people's faces. "Anyways, I know it's only Christmas Eve, but who wants to see what Harry left for us all?"

The excitable elf, playing with his silly putty, raised his hand.

Albus noticed him immediately and said, "Yes Dobby?"

"I will hand out the gifts for people. And I have some to give to a few of you."

Dobby began handing out the gifts to people. Each time he got to someone who had given Master Harry a tracer, Dobby gave them the tracer back with a bright smile. He would then wink a giant eye at them and say 'Merry Christmas.' His cheek training was really beginning to pay some dividends. Dobby merely placed the gift on the top of the still stunned Mad-Eye Moody. Apparently only Albus and Nicholas appreciated their gifts from Dobby. Nicholas even quickly conjured a rubber, house elf sized pirate sword and gave it in return to Dobby. Dobby hugged his legs and cried.

Hermione opened her gift and groaned out loud. She had received a muggle notepad titled 'Grocery List' at the top of every page. More than a couple people were laughing.

Tonks opened a large box and was a bit frustrated to have received her old telly. And it appeared it had been fixed since she threw it out the window.

Albus didn't understand his gift at all. It took a brightly blushing Hermione almost five minutes to properly explain what Viagra was. Tonks eating a banana didn't help matters.

Nicholas opened his box and pulled out a large golden ring. He was examining and everyone was watching him, wondering what would be on the other side of his ring. Nicholas took a deep breath, and plunged his right arm into the ring. It only took a split-second for Tonks to jump out of her seat screaming like a banshee. From on her seat, the rest of the Order spotted another ring she apparently had been sitting on and a quickly retreating hand.

Nicholas began to apologize. "Miss Tonks I am so sorry. I really should have known better with that cheeky brat."

Tonks heart rate calmed down significantly and she started to feel safe again. "No worries. Sorry if I scared you a bit there too."

Nicholas shook his head. "No need to apologize to me. I'm just curious," he paused wondering if this question might offend her, "why aren't you wearing any underwear?"

Tonks blushed as bad as Hermione had earlier and shrugged. "Laundry day."

Nicholas observed the young woman and made a suggestion. "You know you can just use magic and clean them."

Tonks's blush seemed to lessen and she responded, "Look, I'll be frank-"

"No, no, my dear! Don't be frank. Be curt. But go ahead." Nicholas interrupted her.

Tonks eyes visibly slowed down and her thought process seemed to be grinding to a halt. "Okay…" Like most people, when confused turn to Hermione for help. Tonks looked over at Hermione and had a pleading look on her face. Hermione had no clue what to do so she just scowled and flipped Tonks off. This seemed to remind Tonks of what she was talking about. "Anyways, as I was saying, Frank, Curt, or Nicholas, I'm just not a good person if my britches ain't snuggly soft."

Nicholas smiled like a proper dirty old man. "Good to know."

A few more people were beginning to dig into their presents when the school's resident healer called out from down the hallway. "Albus? Are you in there?" She appeared to be on her way to the Great Hall.

Nicholas had an idea. He turned to Albus and said, "Shhh. Watch this." The DADA professor then walked over to the ring sitting on Tonk's seat. He dropped the ring that he had been gifted, over his head like a necklace. After he'd readjusted to looking at the world from a detached point of view, he used his body's hands and picked up the ring carrying his own head. He ran towards the entrance to the hall yelling out, "Madame Pomphrey! Madame Pomphrey! I've had a little accident!"

The matron took one look at the headless professor and went completely pale. She completely collapsed in a dead faint when the detached head asked her, "Do you have a band-aid?"