Chapter 16 – Reactions
The next day found Professor Dumbledore sitting at his desk going through the Daily Prophet. Since the Department of Ministries event Voldemort and his followers had become bolder in their attacks. Since now hiding from the ministry was not an issue anymore, they simply didn't care. Every day now the Daily Prophet would report the death of some family or another.
Dark Marks were rising all over Britain, and even the Aurors themselves were always too late to arrive on the scene, and even by any chance they did, they were slaughtered as well. Overall the situation was very grim.
He was startled out of his thoughts by the hoot of an owl on his window. He noticed it was the owl that he had given to Harry's friends, for using to contact Harry safely, which means Harry has sent me a letter.
The owl dropped the parchment on the headmaster's desk, and flew out of the window to deliver the rest of the letters. He hoped the boy had forgiven him now, and that things had hopefully returned the way they were before. With those positiver thoughts he opened the parchment and read the contents.
By the time he reached the end of the letter his face was white as a ghost, he seemed as if he had aged ten years during the time he took to read the letter. He carefully put the letter down on his desk, and took off his glasses to wipe the tears that were forming in his eyes.
Like many times before he stood up and walked towards the window, casting his eyes towards the forbidden forest, its vast landscape with its lush trees would always help in clearing his mind in the past. The trees always made him feel connected with the earth; it made him feel at peace. But at the moment that didn't help him, for the thousandth time this year the headmaster had only one thought in his mind.
I have failed the boy, like I failed in protecting his familyFawkes noticing his master's mood sang a soft song hoping to alleviate the dark thoughts.
Dumbledore smiled at the effort of his companion "Thank you old friend, but I think even you cant help me right now. Its just one of those days where nothing goes right"
"Still brooding about the boys fate Albus" asked the portrait of Phineas Nigellus
"I am too old for this job Phineas, I should have retired a long time ago. I am tired of everyone looking up to me as the savior when I myself feel I could slip away from this world very soon."
"People always look towards others to find solutions for their own problems. They are like cattle that follow anyone who would herd them" replied Phineas; he continued nevertheless "The boy has disappeared hasn't he"
A shocked Albus looked towards the former headmaster for answers
"Your face told me all the answers I needed Albus. You only think of the boy nowadays."
Albus satisfied with the answers sat down on his chair again lost in his thoughts.
At the same time the Weasley's were just getting up in Grimmauld Place to face another day or in the case of the Ron and Ginny another day stuck in the old filthy house that needed cleaning.
Ginny woke up with the sun hitting her face, she had specifically asked for a room next to a window. Ever since the chamber incident she didn't like residing in dark and cooped up places.
She got up from her bed, ready to face another day, and was just about to leave her room to eat breakfast when she noticed a letter on her pillow.
She didn't recognize the handwriting on the front where her name was written, but when she opened it she realized it was from Harry. She was happy to notice that he had sent a long reply, so she sat by the window and started reading the letter.
She was pleased to notice his positive attitude, and how he was happy to correspond with her. She smiled at his insecurity, that she wouldn't want to become good friends with him.
Typical Harry always thinking about others before himself.
But by the end of the letter she was a little worried about him. Even though she was honored to be trusted with such personal information, a part of her wanted to tell someone like Dumbledore because she knew everyone would be worrying about him and thus would waste their time in trying to find him, while she would be the only one who would know where he actually is and thus not worry too much. But she knew that she couldn't break Harry's trust, and hoped he would find happiness in spending time with his parents.
She must have read the letter atleast five to six times, before she put it away where no one would find it. She went downstairs to the kitchen, wondering how she should break the news to her mother about Harry. Luckily her dumb brother had beaten her to it by running into the room waving like a maniac and screaming, "Mom Harry has left the Dursley's to become an Apprentice under someone"
Sometimes my brother can be soo thick, thought an irritated Ginny. Before her mom could get really hysterical and ask Ron for some answers, Fawkes appeared with a letter asking all order members to report to Hogwarts for a meeting.
"Kids we will discuss this when we return, I have to go" with that she went through the floo to attend the meeting.
Ron sat down heavily on the table with the letter still in his hands.
"I have to tell Hermione" with that said he rushed to contact Hermione through the floo. Luckily for Ginny Ron had left his letter on the table, even though she knew she shouldn't read other peoples private mail, she couldn't help herself and started reading.
She was shocked to notice that Harry had hardly mentioned anything about where he was going to his best friends, but the part where he mentioned about her had her blushing to her roots.
Reading the letter had resolved her decision about not mentioning the contents of what Harry had written to her to anyone.
Unless of course if he doesn't arrive at Hogwarts, thought Ginny
She decided to skip breakfast, and instead went outside to take a little walk to clear her thoughts.
But no matter how much she tried to distract herself, her mind raced back to only one person.
What else are you hiding Harry? This thought kept on repeating in her mind. There had to be some reason why he was going away to train, but why. The questions just kept building up, but she knew she would never find the answers within herself. She stopped by the stream next to her house, and wished that Harry would return safely.
"Return back soon Harry. Please return soon" she said to herself
In a vault deep within the earth running on a different time plane Harry Potter was battling three opponents at one time in a long dark chamber. Spells were flying in a haze of multitude of colors. On his right hand was his new wand, and on the other was his dagger, which he was using on anything that came to close for comfort.
He hardly had any time to be on the offensive since his enemies were closing on him, and he had to think fast.
Luckily Harry saw an opening and threw the dagger at one of the person on his left while aiming at his heart. The knife hit its mark and he fell. But in doing so Harry had lost a weapon.
Now he had to battle the other two with just his wand. The other two opponents didn't give him enough space to take out another dagger, so he used a cutting curse at one of the opponent's heads, which caused him to lose his head.
While Harry had his concentration on the headless opponent, the other one took this as an opportunity, and hit Harry with a banishing charm followed by an illegal pain curse, which caused Harry to drop his wand.
The curse wasn't as painful as a Cruciatius, but this curse had a specialty of making people dizzy for a while after the curse was lifted. Time seemed to have slowed down for Harry as he saw his opponent take out a dagger from his robes and get ready to strike a fateful blow.
Harry was lost in his thoughts, he felt like his training in the last month was for nothing.
People say that in the face of death, your life flashes by in front of you. The same reaction was happening at the moment, he remembered it like yesterday when he returned to the vault with Hedwig.
Flashback
The moment Harry's feet landed on the floor of the vault, he noticed he was surrounded by dozens of Goblins running around. Various types of muggle exercise equipment were being levitated by a group goblins to one of the rooms, which Harry had yet not seen. Some stopped doing whatever they were doing to give him a respectful nod, to which Harry nodded back not wanting to offend them.
Also to his surprise he could understand some of the conversations the goblins were having, but with soo many goblins around he really had to strain himself to understand.
After a while he stopped his effort, when most of them were just asking the same things, like whether they could get some profit from Harry for doing slave work for him.
He moved around till he reached Godric's portrait where he found the manager talking to Godric. Upon noticing him they called him over
"I hope I am not disturbing I can come back later" asked Harry
"Not at all Harry I was just asking some favors from the manager, when I told him what we are about to do, he gave me some wonderful ideas for your training.
We will be including some physical fitness in your training, to increase your body mass. Most wizards shy away from any form of physical exercise so that will also be included as well as some martial arts training, sword training, and also something which the manager has suggested could be very useful, I seem to have forgotten what was its name"
"A muggle fire arm, a.k.a. a gun" replied the manager.
"Oh yes that, fascinating things these muggles come up with"
"Uhh well, who is going to instruct me?" asked Harry
"Well I am providing you with some practice dummies. They have been enchanted to act as instructors as well as opponents for you to practice on. I have provided a manual as well.
Godric has asked for ten dummies, if more are needed you can ask Titus to inform me. Also I have brought with me a firearm for you. It is one of the best which I have come across."
He handed Harry a metal briefcase with the key to open it. Harry was about to open it when Godric asked him to bring it to the sitting room where they could talk without the background noise.
Harry nodded and brought the case to the sofa in the other room, he put the briefcase on his lap, and inserted the key. With a soft click the case opened to reveal two of the most amazing handguns he had ever seen in his life.
He was soo lost in feeling the guns in his hands that he didn't notice the manager enter and sit across from him, while Godric's portrait appeared on the wall.
"Do you like them?" asked the goblin
"Yes very much, they are beautiful, and soo light. I figured them to be much more heavier."
"Well you see I have a hobby, I collect guns and modify them the best way I can. This particular weapon is a Beretta PX4 Storm pistol. Now usually this gun can pack up to 17 rounds in a clip. But I have made it such that it can pack around a 100 atleast. I have also enchanted it to be light, and very silent. You must have noticed the runic carvings on the hilt."
Harry nodded while examining the hilts to notice a series of runes engraved.
"Well these are something I have been experimenting with. Once the guns get used to your magical signature. You can call them much like you can call back your wand to yourself. But I am afraid I still haven't tested them yet.
I have also provided two holsters for the guns, that can be strapped to your thighs, keep them with you at all time, in the beginning you will have to take them out the old fashioned way. But as I said later, when they have bonded to you, you will just have to summon them. They are made with the same enchantments of that of a wand holster so a disarming charm and a summoning charm will be useless as long as they are in the holsters"
Harry was very impressed with the guns. He quickly put on the holsters, and loaded his guns. They felt nice on his thighs.
He went in front of a mirror to admire himself, and realized with amusement that if he now wore a cowboy hat, he would look like some guy from an old western movie.
He closed the case noticing that it had ten extra clips, which would last him a long time.
The manager stood up ready to leave "Well Mr. Potter I think it is time I leave. If you ever need any clips for the gun you can contact me, and also even if u need anything else."
With that said he left.
He took out his guns again to examine them and he heard Godric say in amusement "Wish I could see the face of those deatheaters you would be using the guns on. Defeated by a weapon created by the very people they are trying to eradicate"
End flashback
The dagger was just about to pierce his heart, when the dizziness left Harry, and he came back to his complete senses. Rolling away from his enemy he stood up and took out his gun and pointed it at his opponents head who couldn't recover fast enough
"Checkmate" and with that said Harry put a bullet in his opponent's head.
He looked at his fallen enemies in grim satisfaction, he put away his guns and started walking away when all of a sudden all three opponents got up and stood in an attacking stance. They were ready to start throwing spells again when suddenly a loud voice rung through the dark chamber
"STOP. CEASE ALL ACTION"
At the very moment an impromptu Order meeting was taking place in the headmasters office. The moment Mrs. Weasley had come through the fireplace shouting about the disappearance of Harry, pandemonium had broken loose.
Every one was asking the same question at once to the headmaster hoping for answers while the man himself had his head in his hands to prevent the pounding of his head to increase.
Noticing that everyone was present and seated, he got up and put up his hands asking silently everybody to stop talking.
Luckily they did, "Yes it is true Harry has left the Dursleys. No I don't know where he had gone. The only thing he has told me is that he has been accepted as an Apprentice under someone, and that looking for him will bear no fruit.
Even though I respect the man, the young boy has become it is still not safe for him to leave the confines of his relatives place. Thus I feel we must concentrate all our resources into finding him. I know most of you would disagree with me about this" he cast a glance at the potions master who was sneering, "But Harry is very important to all of us, and he is still too immature to make such decisions for himself. I suggest we break into teams…."
The headmaster was about to continue when he was interrupted by Phineas "Albus are you insane! Didn't Harry make it clear to you that it was useless in trying to look for him, didn't he mention that it would be a waste of the orders resources in trying to look for him, when you could it to battle the dark forces. Give the boy some credit for god sakes, he has defeated the dark lord more times then anyone present in this room, and I should also mention he has no guardian, so he can do whatever he feels like now. In the eyes of the ministry he is a legal wizard."
That really had most of the people shocked in the room, Albus was becoming very suspicious of Phineas the man usually used to take his side, but now he was backing Harry for some reason.
"What do you know Phineas, you know where Harry is don't you?" asked Albus
"Harry is now the heir of the Blacks and the Potters, my allegiance is first to him, ask me more questions like this and I shall leave this room" this statement caused a lot of commotion, the rest of the paintings were throwing insults at him for being disrespectful, and the people in the room were asking him questions on how Harry became the heir at such an early age, and Albus was wondering why the goblins hadn't informed him of this.
He continued unperturbed "As I was saying, wherever he is, he is safe, I give you my word Albus. No matter what you will try you will never find him, and I wont be forthcoming with answers. That is all I have to say to that, I will return later, my ears can only stand soo much noise" with that said he left his painting.
The other paintings were apologizing to Albus for their comrade's behavior, but he waved them off. This was very disturbing news, he knew the old laws which were used to make Harry an adult and there was no way to back out of it. But he would still not give up; he divided the order to look for Harry wherever they could.
Fools thought Phineas, he had returned when the attention was off him. But left soon after to report the news to Harry.
A/N: Read and Review