April 10, 2009: Revisions. Also, I look at the original note and cringe. Yes, I do write romance. Not fanfic romance, and most certainly not slash, but I do write it. Ugh.

Original Note:

I feel I should put this here before anyone starts getting ideas.

I DON'T WRITE ROMANCE.

Plain and simple. I can't do romance, mostly because I've only ever been on one date in my entire life, but that doesn't really matter. I'm just saying, I don't do romance. I may do some pretty... er... violent sex scenes and kinky bondage dominatrix stuff, but that'll never get posted on , nor will it ever be in Blackened Sunrise.

So there will be no Hermione/Harry pairing. There will be no Harry/Ginny. There will be no Harry/Draco (although always a fun pairing to read, especially when violent, but I don't write it). There will be no Draco/Ginny. See, no romance. Yay! Everyone can be happy, because I'm not playing favorites.

Hmm, and I don't follow "movie conventions". The wizard robes I'd always pictured were more like those worn by Gandalf and the rest of the Lord of the Ring wizards. Just to let everyone know.

Okay, right. Itch don't own Harry Potter and the Characters of JK Rowling. *snickers* Book title, anyone?

Blackened Sunrise
Chapter Nine: Arsenal
The Itch

It was several days later that Draco Malfoy found himself staring through blurry-eyes at the one and only Harry James Potter. Ginevra Weasley was just as tired, covering a large yawn, and standing at his side. Both young magicians had only one thought in mind: Why the HELL did they have to be up at two in the ruddy morning? More importantly for the youngest Malfoy, he wanted to know why he was up at two in the morning in the Gryffindor Boy's dorm. Silencing charm or no, if anyone found him in there...!

The Boy-Who-Lived, on the other hand, was ever so cheerfully pulling items out of his trunk. His lips were moving so it was apparent that he was muttering to himself, but the charm kept any and all sound dampened, so the pair of would-be Weapons had only their own slightly acidic sleep-deprived thoughts to fill in the void.

Of course all thoughts about sleep did an abrupt about face and ran off in terror when Harry finally managed to locate his target. Several dozen blades of all sorts landed on the black and gold silk of his bed. The blades ranged from an unusually shaped glaive that Draco could only recognize as a Dark Elf Souldrinker from vague recollections of a book in the library, to the wickedly curved scimitars that were used for hunting dragons that Ginny had heard Charlie complain about. The other objects that Harry retrieved were unrecognizable to either of them, although it was easy enough to assume that they were some form of weapon from the company they kept. It was hardly their fault that pure-blooded wizards wouldn't be able to recognize an AK-47, an M60 or a .9mm pistol.

He motioned the pair over to him, and hesitantly they approached. Each had their own reasons for being leery of the weaponry, and it was only just starting to dawn on them that being a Weapon might just entail knowing how to use these relics. The green eyed sociopath ignored all signs of their hesitancy and gleefully because to load the pair's arms full of weapons with a whistle on is lips. The silencing charm only made his expression that much more terrifying.

The charm, however, did not last all that much longer as the trio made their way out of the Gryffindor Tower. James Potter's invisibility cloak was draped over them as they left, and it was a long shuffle down the halls as they listened to the inanely cheerful little song that Harry was whistling. It certainly didn't match the moods of either of his "students", and they were starting to regret the decision to become his followers. Why hadn't they sided with the "almighty" Dumbledore? They wouldn't have to deal with this lunatic every waking and supposed-to-be-sleeping moment if they had done so.

Harry had to stop his whistling in order to skirt around Filch and Mrs. Norris as they came to one of the smaller service entrances into the fields around Hogwarts Castle. Once safely out of the caretaker's reach, Harry spun around and whipped the cloak off of the other two. It settled around his shoulders with the visible side out, not unlike a Superhero's cape. Not that either Ginevra or Draco happened to be familiar enough with the muggle concept of Superheroes to recognize it for what it was.

"Welcome," Harry intoned solemnly, although the wide grin on his face destroyed the effect he was going for, "To the Living Weapons 101. Today and for the rest of your time in this class, I will be your instructor. You can call me Professor Awesome."

"...Harry?" Ginny wondered a touch nervously, "You, um, haven't been randomly dipping into any of Snape's potions have you?"

He blinked, head tipped to one side and confusion furrowing his brow. "Not recently. Why do you ask?"

"Are you positive about that, Potter?" Draco's drawl had a hint of his normal sneer to it as he raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "You certainly sound a little--"

"Off your rocker." Ginevra interrupted with a tight smile.

"Ah..." Harry's voice was soft and considering as he looked away for a long tense moment. When he looked back he was grinning again. "That would be because I am! It's quite fun to be insane, quite fun. But I digress! Weapon says that you need to be trained, and you need to be trained quickly. Battle is on its way and all that."

The two would-be-Weapons shot each other confused looks before they realised just who they were sharing their confusion with. Just because they were both going to be in training to become Weapons did not mean that they had to stop being rude to each other. The Malfoy and Weasley families just did not get along. It was that simple, and the confused looks turned into unsettled glares before they turned their attention back to their erstwhile "professor"…

…of whom had just stripped off his robe.

Thankfully for Draco, and a little bit more disappointing for Ginny, he was still wearing clothing beneath said robes. The clothing in question was a pair of black jeans and a black t-shirt, the sleeves of which were long enough to fall over the straps around his upper arms and hide most of them. The chain that had been forced upon him was carefully wrapped around his arm, and for the first time they were able to see his gauntlets in their full glory. To their surprise, he had even more weapons tucked into the gauntlets, as well as a foot-long dagger lashed to his hip.

"Well?" the Weapon was tapping his foot. "Are you going to stand there all night? Strip and start strapping on your equipment!"

This was certainly not how either pureblood had expected their training to begin. However, the knowledge that Harry was insane and enjoyed it spurred both of them to start to slowly remove their robes. Draco had been wearing a simple pair of dragonhide breeches beneath his robe, without a shirt. Beneath hers, Ginny had been dressed in an ankle-length skirt and a white blouse that had seen better days. Potter frown at both of them.

"We're going to need to get you some new clothing. That stuff won't hold up in battle; especially not your shirt, Malfoy."

The pureblood gave him a dirty look then eyed Harry's own clothing. "Oh and like yours will."

Potter gave a careless shrug. "It's special material. I'll talk to the Old Man about getting some for you two. Now... your equipment..."

The pair looked down at the pile of weapons that they had dumped at Harry's feet once the cloak had come off. The only thing in that pile was weapons, weapons, and more weapons. Ginny was certain that weapons did not truly count as "equipment", especially as she couldn't even name the majority of them outside of "sharp pointy blade" and "weird muggle thing". She bit her lip and looked back up at Harry. "Harry? I don't even know what half of these things are."

He slapped his forehead with a touch more drama then Draco thought absolutely necessary. "Oh of course you don't! How could I have been so stupid?!" he crouched down and picked up the pair of .9mm pistols in his collection to toss to her. "Be careful there, Ginevra. You don't want to accidentally turn the safeties off."

"Safeties?"

"They prevent the guns from shooting you while you're handling them. It doesn't really matter right now as neither of them have any ammo in the chambers, but it's better to be safe than sorry, right?" He turned back to the pile and began rummaging through the weapons, apparently uncaring if he got cut on the blades. After a moment he pulled out a quartet of eight inch daggers. "These suckers are Stallion Blades. Made from the horns of black unicorns--"

"A-aren't those endangered?" the redhead wondered.

"They are." Harry confirmed with a small frown. "There are still poachers, though. Took these ones off a Death Eater maybe four... no, five months ago. Catch." at this, he tossed the blades to Draco. "Now this is a... well, I can't remember what it's called, but it looks bloody cool." He grinned widely and held up the metal staff so that it was parallel to the ground. With a moment's concentration the metal pulsed and extended a number of wickedly curved and wickedly sharp blades from either end. "Enchanted metal; I'm guess it's of Amazonian origin."

He set it down and continued to rattle through the names and properties of the weapons in his pile. Almost an hour and a half later, each of the Weapons-in-training had their own personal arsenal of "toys". To Ginny's surprise, she had been given all four of the guns as well as the Amazonian Battle Staff. Draco found himself the proud owner of a myriad of daggers and short swords, while Harry kept everything else for himself.

"Now..." he rubbed his hands together gleefully."We're going to introduce your to your new partners by working you two into the ground. Doesn't that sound fun?"

Draco managed to drag himself back into the dungeons around ten to six. His robe was only half on, but it was enough to cover the weapons that Harry had insisted that he wear at all times. In this case, insisted meant that Harry had ever-so-believably threatened to obliviate every last second of his lift which would leave him as a squalling baby in a nearly adult body. Oh no, that would not have been good at all.

It meant, of course, that the blonde scion of House Malfoy was currently wearing the four Stallion Blades strapped to his arms. Several other blades tucked into the waistband of his pants, into his boots, and a short sword called of all things "Blessed Mother" in a scabbard across his back. It was quite the misleading name for a blade, as it was actually a cursed blade; one designed to tear the soul right from the body with the tiniest of cuts and turn the soulless shell into a zombie servant. Harry had had a decidedly unhealthy gleam in his eyes when he had given it to Draco.

At this moment, Draco felt like he was a zombie. His arms ached from swinging all those blasted blades around, and his legs hurt from trying to dodge Ginevra's surprisingly accurate shots. Of course, Harry just had to be a sadistic bastard about it all and had used a silencing charm on the guns. It worked better than any of the muggle-made silencers that he'd shown Ginny how to use.

This, of course, meant that Harry had to use numerous healing spells in order to patch Draco up after their so-called training.

The Malfoy could only wonder if Harry had gone through the same training. If he had been smacked around the head enough times, that might just explain his attitude.

"Well well well, it looks like Draco's been gettin' some," the taunt came from the resident non-sexual, one Blaise Zabini. Non-sexual in the sense that not even the other Slytherins were all that positive of whether or not Blaise was male, female, or-- as one rumour kept postulating-- made out of plants. Not that it mattered all that much. Zabini didn't normally sleep in the dorms.

"Bugger off," Malfoy snarled. "I've had a bloody rotten time of it already today and I don't need you to add to it."

"So how long have you been up?" Zabini ignored the warning and threw an arm around Draco's shoulders. The look in the sixteen year olds grey eye quickly corrected that decision, and Zabini's arm was ever-so-abruptly removed from his shoulders. Draco stormed away-- was that a limp? -- leaving the question unanswered.

"Now that was bloody rude."

Ginny wasn't having a much better time of it. This may have had something to do with the fact that she didn't manage to get back to her dorm until it was already seven thirty. Harry had decided to "keep her after class" in order to properly train her. Draco wasn't good enough with his blades or modifying his speed with his own powers in order to be a challenge; not unsurprising as training had only just begun. Therefore Harry had attacked her.

Unlike Draco, he used more than just his blades. Harry had his own set of pistols; they had been shoved into the back of his waistband, and it had shocked her enough to bring her to an abrupt halt when he had drawn them. It wasn't until the first bullet hit her shoulder that she started moving again. Beneath her robe, her clothing was still bloodstained.

To top it all off, there was the fact that the majority of the Gryffindor girls of her year were already up. They watched in stunned silence as she dragged herself through the common room, then into her dorm, and proceeded to collapse face down into her bed. Within moment she was asleep and the whispers were beginning to fly. The rumours who where the youngest Weasley had been started simple and innocently, but as the rumour mongers learned that Malfoy hadn't been a much better sight when he trudged into the Slytherin common rooms they turned vicious.

As he settled himself comfortably into a chair tucked away in a darkened corner to watch the mayhem unfold, Harry Potter grinned maliciously. It would do those two some good to be isolated from their friends and their house. After all it would force them to focus all their attention on being a Weapon if they were deprived of any support outside of him.

There was no way that he was going to let himself screw this one up. He needed all of the help that he could get at the moment; it only took a short glance at his unwanted wards to confirm that fact. Once he was rid of these blasted things everything would be so perfect, it was a taste on the tip of his tongue. Four full power Wizard-born Weapons.

Four.

All he had to do now was off the chance to the fourth.

End Chapter

original note: Who's going to be the fourth? Guess you'll just have to wait until Saturday to find out. *grin* And yes, I already know who it'll be, but you're welcome to guess.

April 10, 2009: I never realised just how much of this story I had forgotten. Hmm.