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Potter – The Stone
Chapter 14
By Cory D. Rose
(c) 2005
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-Five years ago-
Six year old Harry Potter raced through the front yard as fast as he could move as a humanoid shadow rose into the air above him. It threw something at him and Harry dove to the side, rolled, and came to his feet. A small explosion went off and the air was full of white powder.
The shadow landed, revealing a teenaged girl with long brown hair. She grinned as Harry started running again, quickly vanishing into the trees. A second blur hopped out of a nearby tree and landed next to her.
"Ukyo."
"Ran-chan." She said.
"You get him yet?"
Ukyo pouted. "Where did he learn to dodge like that?"
"Apparently he's had problems with bullies all his life. He learned a trick or two."
"Ah, that explains quite a bit." She said. "Well sugar, back to work. I want to see why you decided to train this kid."
"You'll see." Ranma said and vanished from sight.
Ukyo raced off after Harry and took to the trees. By that time Harry was about a hundred yards away. He had changed direction three times and was nearly to the safe point. He knew he was close, but the girl Ranma had chasing him was good at tracking him down.
She had even seen past the one trap he set up to get her to back off. Looking around, he spotted a fallen tree and a small mountain of leaves, and decided to try another trick. He quickly found a tree branch that he could actually use. It only took him about two minutes to set up the trap.
Over the last several weeks, him and Ranma had stowed away on a plane and arrived in Tokyo Japan after a few hours in the air. Ranma had explained that it wasn't the best way to travel, but that he needed to get them out of the country for a few months.
Harry really didn't care why they were leaving. He was just glad to get away from his idiot relatives. Every time Harry though of the Dursleys he had to resist the urge to go and hurt them. At first he just wanted to get away from them, but as time passed his rage just multiplied itself.
Because of this Ranma was trying to get him to control his anger and kept mentioning someone named Akane and trying to explain why uncontrolled anger was such a bad idea. Ranma called what he was teaching Controlled Rage. He said that being angry was fine, but by channeling the rage he felt into movement and exercise, it could be used in a constructive manner.
He looked up as he heard something heading his way and grabbed the stick and set it so a little tension was felt. That set the trap, so Harry quickly hid behind a tree and knelt down to watch, he was half buried in leaves. He didn't see the shadow land in the branches above him though.
The approaching noise quickly vanished as Ukyo raced into the small clearing, bouncing off a tree, and landing softly. She glanced around and stared at the pile of leaves for a second, then took a step forward. She felt something move below her foot.
"Ah nuts…"
Like stepping on a rake, the branch was curved in such away it spring up from underneath the leaves. This launched a storm of leaves right at Ukyo as she sprang back and into the air. Harry raced out from behind the tree, stomped on two more branches, and sent more leaves flying into the air before turning and racing back into the trees.
Ukyo cursed as she landed and took off after him as quickly as she could. She glanced up at Ranma in the trees above as she passed by. The kid was proving to be quite good at Martial Arts Hide and Seek, though right now they weren't fighting over hiding spots. She just had to catch him.
"Hah, look at him go." Ranma called, watching Harry run.
She ran after him and quickly had him in sight again. She took to the trees and started gaining a bit of height. Harry wasn't watching his back that well, so Ukyo pulled another flour bomb out and tossed it at him. He twitch to the side and dodged the flour.
Cursing, Ukyo wasn't about to let the kid get away with that. She launched three more in quick succession. They were aimed at where he might go, not at the kid himself. Harry dodged the first one with a smirk, but the second one slammed into his head and exploded into a small white cloud. It was when the third one hit that something odd happened.
It flew in half a second behind the second one and appeared to hit something about two feet from the kid. The bomb exploded into another large white cloud and enveloped the trees all around the kid. Ukyo landed and raced right up to the edge of the cloud and looked around.
About five feet away, she saw the kid kneeling on the ground with his arms crossed in front of his face. Ranma landed nearby and walked over and they gaped at the kid. Harry was completely devoid of flour as well as the ground about two feet in every direction.
"What the heck?" Ukyo muttered. "Is that a Ki shield?"
Ranma shrugged. "I don't think so. I'm not sure what he did, but it would be a handy thing to learn."
"No kidding." Ukyo muttered. "We need to get the flour out of the air as quickly as we can."
"Why?"
"It's slightly flammable."
Ranma gave her a weird look. "You could have told me."
"I added a few things to the mix to make it less dangerous and removed the gun powder that I usually mix in. Its safe enough, we just have to be careful and let it settle and then water it down."
"Right." Ranma nodded. "Good thing this its been raining every couple of days."
Ukyo just nodded as Harry finally looked up at them.
"Oh no, not again." He muttered, looking quite scared.
"Hey kid, are you alright?"
Tears started running down Harry's face as he curled into a ball. "Please don't hurt me."
"Harry!" Ranma yelled and ran over to him. The kid was shivering and trying not to cry. "Uc-chan, what's wrong with him?"
"I'm not sure, sugar. Let's get him back to the house." She suggested.
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A couple of days after the game, Ranma entered the Owlery. This wouldn't have been that noteworthy, except that Ranma was in female form. She grits her teeth as she entered the large room and glanced around at all the owls. They seemed to be aware that she was there, even though she was invisible to normal sight.
"Hoot." Harry's Owl said.
"Hedwig, good to see you." Ranma said, appearing in front of the owl. It didn't seem surprised to see Ranma. "I need to send a long distance letter, very long distance. All the way to Japan…"
The owl hopped to her head, flew out the Owlery entrance and quickly vanished. Eye twitching, Ranma glared after the owl. "Traitor."
"Hoot!"
"Same to you!" She yelled.
Then a large brown and grey owl landed on her shoulder and held out its leg. "Whoo."
"You're willing to go that far?"
It nodded.
Ranma did a little dance and tied the letter to the owl's leg. She even gave it several Knuts in a little bag on the other leg. "I need you to go to Nodoka Saotome, my mother. She's in Tokyo, Japan. Juban district." Ranma explained and brought up a vision of her in her mind.
The owl seemed to concentrate for several seconds, nipped Ranma's ear, making Ranma squawk, and took off. The other owls hooted as Ranma stalked out of the Owlery a few seconds later, vanishing in mid step.
"Bloody owls!"
Ranma was still grumbling as she made her way out the front doors of the castle. The doors were easy enough to open, she just had to make sure no one was around to see them open on their own. Ranma was getting a little tired of running around invisible all the time, but it was needed at the moment.
She sighed as she looked out across the darkened grounds. The forest was barely visible this late at night, but she could still see a number of lights in the windows of the castle. She sent her aura out to make sure no one was around as she ran across the ground.
Seconds later she entered green house seven. Now all she had to do was dodge the more aggressive plants, jump one of the hedges, and find that weird looking purple flower again. Luckily, there was a lot of it around this place. Ranma was a bit surprised though, Cologne had explained that finding the plant was harder than using it.
Ten minutes later, she stepped around a tree. A long tendril was hanging from her neck and her pants were missing. Grumbling, she stalked over to the purple flower and glared at it.
"You are so lucky I need you." She muttered to it.
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"I want him expelled!" Severus Snape yelled. "He tired to kill me!"
"No Severus." Albus said.
"That brat threw something at me! It could have killed me! I want him gone!" Snape yelled.
"This is no evidence that such a thing happened." Dumbledore explained.
"There were hundreds of witnesses!"
"I've been asking around Severus, no one really recalls what happened. Just that you suddenly dived on Quirrell and everything turned to chaos after that. No one really recalls anything until Harry caught the Snitch."
"Then he Obliviated the students!"
"A first year? Severus, even you can't believe that?" Albus Dumbledore said.
Snape's mouth snapped closed and his eyes narrowed. "The bench…"
"Quite amazing really, when I went to look at the evidence there was this large hole. Right where you were sitting. It looked as if someone had just ripped it out for some reason."
"You're not doing this to save the brat are you Albus?" Snape growled.
Dumbledore shook his head. "Of course not, but it's a happy accident. Harry needs to finish his schooling and I'd bet he thinks you tried to hurt him Severus. After all, a counter jinx looks just like a jinx when cast." Dumbledore said mildly.
"I don't care what the brat thinks."
"And that is why you have so many problems with him."
Snape stalked out of the Headmaster's office with his robes billing behind him. He was so angry that several students dove into unused rooms as he stalked back to his office. Neville Longbottom was nearly run over as he scrambled to get out of the way.
"Ten points from Gryffindor!" Snape snarled as he noticed Neville.
"Ah man."
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After the Quiddich match, Harry's free time seemed to vanish. For some reason Ranma started to work him harder than ever, pushing him till he was so worn out that he could barely attend his classes. Harry was just glad that Ranma forced him to study and train at the same time or he would never have been able to keep up with his classes. Ranma didn't say why, but Harry could tell that Ranma was punishing him for something.
The only thing that it could be was that throwing star, but Ranma never came out and said it. Therefore, Harry just buckled down and took everything that Ranma had to give him. Harry also noticed something else when he wasn't training or doing reams of homework.
No one was asking about the star incident anymore. At first the questions were non stop, but then they just seemed to dry up over night. Even the Weasley twins seemed to have forgotten it ever happened. Harry found that extremely odd because they where right there when he threw the star. He'd even asked them what was going on.
"Hey guys, about that thing with Snape…"
"Snape?" Fred asked.
"What happened with Snape?" George asked. "Was it…"
"…funny?"
"You were there when I did it."
"What!"
"Sorry mate, got not clue…"
"…what you're talking about."
Harry gaped at them. "The throwing star?"
"A shooting star?" Fred asked.
"Where?" George asked, looking out the window.
"The throwing star! The one I threw at Snape!"
"Oh, a meteor."
"No! Star!"
"Of course! You're a super star!" Fred exclaimed.
"Right famous you are too, why everyone knows your name!" George said, grinning widely.
"AGHAAAAA!" Harry yelled and walked away.
The twins looked at each other in confusion, and then grinned. "I don't know what we did…"
"…but it was brilliant!"
They started laughing. Then they sobered and looked at each other. "Got the…"
"..potion?"
Fred nodded.
George grinned. "Animated Snowballs!"
They raced out of the common room, giggling. A sound that would send a chill down the spine of anyone that heard it. However, by that time Harry was already descending back into the trunk. He was very confused and wondered if Ranma had done anything to cause it. As he entered the front room he spotted Ranma dumping some purple flowers in the trash bin.
"What are those?"
"Just some herbs." Ranma said with a shrug. "How's your day been going?"
"Pretty good, all though I've come close to nodding off in the middle of class a couple of times. But that's because of all the training I've been doing lately."
Ranma grunted and finished closing up his pack. "I've got a new move to show you today."
"Oh?"
"Yep, but training will take two weeks. Most of your vacation."
"So we aren't going to visit Aunty?"
"Not this year, we don't have access to a phone or a plane to get back to Japan and you know how long it would take us to walk that distance."
Harry shuddered. He never wanted to walk across the continent again. He would hitch a ride on a plane before he let that happen. "Ah well, good thing I put my name down on the list to stay here."
"They had a list?"
Harry nodded.
Ranma gave him a look. "Also, remember we usually stay in Japan for two months during the holidays. We won't be able to do that for the next seven years."
"True, I hadn't thought about that."
"I sent an owl to mom about the situation."
"YOU WHAT!"
"Sent an owl, even paid the thing like that book on post owls said." Ranma said.
Harry started sputtering. "What if someone saw you?"
"I always move around using the Umisenken, they can't see me."
"When will Hedgwig be back?"
"I didn't send Hedgwig."
"You didn't…"
Ranma folded his arms. "Your bird, refused to deliver the letter. So I had to use a larger bird."
"He refused?"
"Actually, he heard my request and then flew off before I could tie the letter to his leg."
"Ah, right."
"Now about that training. We need to increase your strength before you can learn the new move, so we'll be working on that for the next few days." Ranma pulled what looked like a fishing vest out of nowhere and handed it to Harry. "Put that on."
Taking the vest, Harry crashed to the ground under its weight. "This thing weighs a ton!"
"Not even close." Ranma said with a grin. "Now put it on, with a bit of Ki manipulation you should be able to adjust to the weight over the next few days. In two weeks you will be at least twice as strong as you are now."
"But…"
"Come on, come on. This is just the first step and you need to be in better shape as well."
"I'm only eleven!"
"So?"
"I'm too young!"
"A likely excuse." Ranma waved off the rest of Harry's protests.
A few minutes later Harry had the vest on. "This is stupid."
"It's worked for thousands of martial artists across the world, it will work for you." Ranma said, then handed Harry some arm and leg weights. "Put these on too."
Grumbling, Harry put the weight around his wrists and ankles. "Done."
Ranma gave him a push for the training room. "Let's get to work, and remember to concentrate on your Ki. The sooner you learn this, the better. Especially with the way you play that Quiddich thing. Dangerous sport that."
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Coming down the hallway was a giant evergreen tree with a pair of legs and boots jutting from the sides as it walked. The sight confused Harry for a few seconds before he realized that it was Hagrid carrying the tree. He ran over to the tree and peaked around at Hagrid.
"Hi."
"Arry!" Hagrid said. "How ya doin this find day."
"I'm cold as hell."
"I 'ear ya." Hagrid said with a laugh. "I need to get this tree to the Great Hall. Just the first of four of der suckers."
"They're all going to be made up for Christmas?"
"Yep!"
"Wow." Harry said in awe. Even with Ranma's family, they only ever used one tree and it always looked the same. He couldn't even imagine what the hall would look like when it was done.
"You better run along now." Hagrid told him as he reached the entrance hall, swung the massive tree around, and started shoving the thing through the doors.
"Hey you big oaf!" A voice yelled from inside the hall.
"Bugger off, ya lump." Hagrid said and continued to push the tree inside.
Harry heard some cussing on the other end. A few seconds later Hagrid got the giant thing inside and started moving across the hall, holding the tree above his head. He winced as the outer edges of the tree brushed several Gryffindor and Ravenclaw students off their benches.
"Sorry, comin through." Hagrid called.
Then Harry noticed that Draco Malfoy was standing near the doors glaring at Hagrid. The boy hadn't noticed him yet.
"Malfoy."
The blonde's head spun around. "Potter." He sneered.
"Seems there's room to go through now."
"Indeed." The blonde said, waving for his two tag alongs to follow him. "So orphan boy, going to sit here and cry all Christmas?"
Harry grinned a little. "Nope, I get free rein of the castle."
"Well we all know that without your mudblood mother, you can't do anything, and most of the world wants you dead. So, enjoy your freedom." Draco said as he walked off, laughing.
Glowering, Harry thought about using a hex he just learned, but Hermione distracted him.
"Hi Harry, today's our last day!" She said happily.
"You heading home?"
She nodded. "It's been a while. Mom and Dad say they want to show me something when I get home." Hermione knew that mentioning her family wouldn't insult Harry. "What did Draco want?"
"Just the usual insults about me and my family." Harry said with a shrug.
"So what will you do while I'm gone?"
Harry sighed. "Training, Ranma has already started. He's got me wearing weighted clothing."
The girl gave him a look over. "I can't tell."
"It's a weighted vest, leg weights, and wrist weights." He said, pulling back the sleeve of his robe to show them to her.
"How much are you wearing?"
"I'm not sure, Ranma wouldn't say. Every time I asked he would step up our sparing session." Harry said with a shrug. It's heavy, but not to bad so I should adjust in a day or two."
Hermione nodded. "I see. Does he have you doing anything else?"
"Just the usual exercises."
She looked away for a second. "I'll try and send you something for Christmas, okay?"
Harry shrugged. "You don't have to. I wasn't really planning on celebrating Christmas this year. I'm usually in Japan by now, with Ranma's family. It's always a lot of fun. He always gets into a fight with someone. They just pop and attack him."
"Really?"
"Oh yeah, last year this fry cook got mad at Ranma and attacked him over a loaf of bread. What was strange is that the guy thought Ranma was someone from ten years ago who stole the bread."
Hermione giggled. "He certainly leads and interesting life."
"You should see him when he's fighting for real. I've never seen anything like it before."
"I might have to see if he'll train me sometime. Though with all this homework we have around here, I don't know."
"Got me, he might if he thinks you're worth it. But he has a hard time really hitting girls."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, he showed this girl something once. Instead of hitting her, he would dance around her attacks, and tap her where he would have hit her. It drives some girls up a wall in frustration though, just so you know."
"I bet it would." She said, then blinked and remembered something. "I've been looking around for that name that Hagrid mentioned a few days ago, Nicolas Flamel. He doesn't appear to be in the library, the main one or the Ravenclaw library."
"Ravenclaw has its own library?"
"Yep, about half the size of the Hogwart's library and more in depth on spell theory. Anyway, about Flamel?"
"In all the excitement I'd nearly forgotten about that guy."
"Well if you can, try and look for him while I'm away. Study too, that way I won't have to help with your homework as much." She smirked at him.
"Hey!"
Giggling, she kissed his cheek and ran down the hall.
Harry blinked, confused. "What was that for."
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Once the holidays started, Ranma really started to take Harry's training up a notch, pushing him back to the ten hours a day schedule for the first week, then increasing that. Harry did have free time to himself though. A fact that Ranma insisted on actually, giving him three hours of every day to relax and mess around. Harry usually spent that screwing around with Ron, who seemed to be a bit lonely when Harry wasn't around.
However, he did take the time to sit down with Ron to play Wizard's Chess. The little pieces were exactly like a regular chess set, but these pieces moved around and tried to give the player advice. They were also rude, insulting, conniving, and worked against you if they didn't like you.
Ron thought it was hilarious.
"So, where do you disappear to all the time?"
"Just training. I can't loose my edge or my guardian will retrain me, from the beginning."
Ron gave him a confused look.
"Martial arts?"
"I don't know anything about being married." Ron said, looking fearful.
That sent Harry to floor laughing.
"What?"
"Martial arts, hand to hand combat training. Using your hands and feet to defend yourself."
"Why would you do something stupid like that? Your wand can protect you from anything." Ron said with typical pureblood ignorance.
"What in the world would you do if you lost your wand?" Harry asked.
"Why would I lose my wand?"
"Say someone snapped it, how would you fight then?"
Ron paled. "You aren't going to snap my wand!"
"I never said I would."
"You just did!"
"That was only an example. I just want to know how you would fight if you didn't have your wand."
"I'd be dead."
"Huh?"
"The only way I'll not have my wand is when I'm dead." Ron said, nodded at his logic and placed Harry's queen in checkmate again. All the pieces gave Harry the red eye.
Sighing, Harry got up and headed for bed. He was just glad it was Christmas Eve because Ranma usually gave him the day off from training, to a point anyway. He usually had to do some thing or another. His first Christmas he had to help Aunty Nodoka decorate the tree, using only his feet.
The next year he was asked to hang the lights around the house. Ranma made him swing around the house like a monkey to string the lights with his feet. Every year it was something different and strange, yet it would always teach him something new. Which Ranma would then force him to master before the end of the year. This usually led to some new technique.
"Get up!"
Harry almost jumped out of bed, almost. Instead, he sat up, blinked a few times, and glared at Ron. "What?"
"It's Christmas! Open your presents!"
Crawling to the end of his bed, he looked down and saw several presents waiting for him. He blinked a few times. "Why would I have presents?"
"Well duh! It's Christmas!"
Vaulting off the end of the bed, he knelt down to examine the first one. A long package, neatly stuck under the length of his bed. Confused, Harry pulled out it out and examined the dark brown paper. The attached note said 'To Harry from Hagrid'.
It was a hand carved staff made out of a wood Harry didn't recognize. Ron was watching him. Harry spun the staff a few times and grinned a little. The thing was balanced, perfectly. He'd have to get Ranma to look it over.
"What's with the tree branch?" Ron asked.
Harry fell face first to the floor. He groaned.
"What?"
"Never mind." Harry insisted and sat the staff on the bed.
He turned back to the small pile and grabbed the next one. It turned out to be a green sweater. "Ah, clothing."
"That's from my mum." Ron said, eyeing the shirt. "She gives one to everyone in the family. Look there at the bottom of the box, its fudge. I told her in a letter you might not get much, so she must have sent this."
Harry carefully sat the sweater on the bed, sampled the fudge, and shared it with Ron. After that, he turned back to the pile and noticed that he only had three presents left. Harry really hadn't expected anything at all and figured all his presents would have to wait until summer when they could be sent from Japan.
The next one was a present from Hermione. He pulled the wrapping off and tossed it to the side. He found himself holding a book of some sort. She was in Ravenclaw so he wasn't surprised, but then he opened it. The pages seemed to be blank. "I think it's a journal?"
Ron looked it over. "I guess, not very useful though."
Harry shrugged and sat it next to the staff. "I'll look a little closer later."
He moved onto the next present. One from Ranma. He took a few minutes to examine it, looking for traps. Ranma did like to trick him from time to time. After that he opened it. "A pair of wand holsters?"
"Oooh!" Ron said, awed. "Those are a nice set. One for your arm and another for your leg. You need to keep them oiled until you learn how to use a preservation charm, but you should learn that in a year or two."
"Cool." Harry wondered where Ranma managed to get the things. He shrugged and moved onto his next package. This one was a little bigger and felt soft to the touch. He opened it and a silvery cloth material fell out, gleaming in the light from the torches around the room. "What the heck? A cloak?"
The cloth reminded Harry of water in some ways. He quickly donned it and heard Ron gasp, again. He turned and gave the red headed boy a look. "What?"
"Look down."
Blinking, Harry did just that and found that his whole body was invisible. He gasped. "What the heck!"
"It's an invisibility cloak! Those are super rare and really expensive!"
Harry could hear the jealousy in Ron's voice. "Who could have sent this? And why?"
"There's a note on the floor." Ron pointed to it.
Harry read the note out loud. "This was left in my possession many years ago by your father, it's time it was returned. Have fun and don't get caught! Merry Christmas."
"Who's it from?"
"Doesn't say."
"Fred and George would offer to have your baby for that cloak."
"Ewww!"
Ron just nodded. "So your father used to own this cloak, I wonder what he used it for. The Ministry restricts their use and ownership."
"Got me, probably to sneak out and explore the castle or something." He said as he took off the cloak folded it, and tossed it in his trunk. It would take a bit of thought to figure out the best way to use the cloak.
The rest of the day was rather uneventful, though Harry had to admit that the dinner put on by the school was quite a sight. He'd never seen so much food in his life and this was coming from someone that knew how much a Saotome male could pack away. Ron of course ate so much he got sick, but that was all part of the fun.
He went back for more later on. When no one was watching, he noticed that food just seemed to vanish off the tables. Harry liked the part when he saw one of the turkeys just vanished into thin air, then a couple of pies, bread, and many other things. He was sure that when he got back to the trunk he'd find the fridge quite full of leftovers.
Later on, after everyone was in bed, Harry was still wide awake. Without Ranma pushing him to his limits for hours on end, he had more energy than normal. Even the weighted clothing wasn't bothering him much anymore. He was feeling restless. Then as Ron made some kind of noise in his sleep, Harry thought about his invisibility cloak. His father's cloak and what it could mean.
The thing opened the whole of Hogwarts to exploration. There were places he couldn't go as a student, but with the cloak that changed everything. Flich wouldn't know he was around. Peeves wouldn't rat him out this time. It was enough to make Harry giddy with excitement, but he managed to control himself as he grabbed his cloak.
He pulled hood over his head and vanished completely as he made his way down the stairs and out the portrait hole. The Fat Lady was snoring softly as he passed by, unaware that he was leaving. Grinning, he made his way down the corridor, checking out some of the side corridors he hadn't checked before.
Eventually he found his way to the entrance to the library and paused as he considered the dark doorway. He thought about Hermione for a second and remembered that he was supposed to look around for Nicolas Flamel's name while she was gone. He hadn't looked at one book since she left.
Of course, he had been distracted by everything that was going on over the last few days. That and being insulted by magic chess pieces for being such a bad chess player. Shrugging, he figured he could read for hours of he draped the cloak over him and the book and used a spell to make some light and hid it with the cloak.
Entering the library, he made his way to the back areas. The Restricted section was darker than the rest of the library and roped off as well. Like the rest of the school, the whole area was a bit of a maze. One he passed the rope he wouldn't know where he was anymore. He'd have to be careful where he went.
He scanned the area before he lifted the rope and entered the restricted section. Because of his parents school books he had learned a few spells outside what the teachers were showing them in class. So he whispered a spell under his breath and the end of hi wand lit up like a flash light. He aimed it at the books and examined the leather bound books with their pealing gold lettering.
A book caught his eye and he pulled it off the shelf and opened it to check the index, but the book had other plans. It started screaming loud enough for the people in Hogsmead to hear it. He slammed the book shut, but it didn't muffle the sound at all.
He realized that it was an alarm of some kind. Glancing around, he dropped the book, made sure his cloak was hiding him completely, and ran for it. Even then, he could hear people running down the hallway, right for the library. Then he heard Filch's voice.
Harry wasn't really paying attention to where he was as he ran through the library, so he quickly lost his way. He eventually stopped beside a suit of armor to get his bearings, but he had no clue where he was. Then things got worse as Harry realized that Professor Snape was with Filch. They were looking for whoever was in the restricted section.
Then things got worse as both of them came around the corner, swiftly walking down the hall, looking around. As usual Filch looked like he wanted to kill someone and Snape was irritated. Probably for being disturbed this late at night because a student was causing problems.
Seconds after they passed Harry spotted a slightly open door just a few paces away, almost hidden in the shadows of the corridor. He quickly ducked into the room and relaxed for the first time since the book started screaming. After a few minutes he heard the two older men's foot steps vanish.
Looking around the room he was in, Harry noticed all the old desks and chairs piled along the walls. Then an object near the back, covered with a sheet that was about to fall off, was a large mirror. Nearly eight feet high with a frame of golden wood. He walked over and wondered why anyone would put a large mirror in a place like this.
He could make some writing near the top, bit it was so dark in the room that he couldn't really read what it said. So he stepped in front of the mirror and gasped. Spinning around, he confirmed that the room was indeed empty, but as he turned back to the mirror he could see himself with a lot of people in the background.
Then the people started to slowly vanish, though he recognized Aunty Saotome, Kasumi Tendo, and even his Aunt Petunia. Though his aunt looked a little irritated to be among all these other people, she was glaring at them. Then she too vanished, leaving only two people Harry didn't recognize. Then like a stroke of lightning he realized who they were.
"Mum…dad?" He gasped. "What the hell?"
oooooooooo
Author Notes: As the flash back shows, Harry has some problems to overcome even though Ranma took him from the Dursleys. Harry likes to keep things to himself and doesn't really trust anyone to much yet, but he's learning about life. They were training in the forests outside Tokyo, near the spot where Cologne trained Ryoga in the Breaking Point attack. Ranma is evaluating Harry.
Also remember that Ukyo is now Ukyo Saotome, she was adopted into Ranma's family by Nodoka to save her honor. She's not a favorite character of mine, but I thought I'd use her for once just for a change of pace. Ukyo's flour bombs are quite deadly since she can set them off quite easily. I figure she might be able to pull off a burst of Ki by now.
Martial Arts Hide and Seek is pretty self explanatory.
Omake:
George's eyes gleamed as he stood in front of the potion and added in a chunk of chocolate. On the other side of the potion, Fred added in a few drops of a purple liquid. The potion started to bubble and they giggled.
"How long?"
"About a minute."
"We better get out of here then."
They raced out of the room and glanced down the hallway. Filch was at the end of the corridor and spotted them. He started stalking towards them instantly. Mrs. Filch ran ahead of him.
"You! What are you doing!" Filch yelled.
Fred and George didn't say anything as they ran down to the end of the hall and around the corner.
"I'll catch you! Detention!"
Filch stopped for a second and glanced into the room. He quickly spotted the potion and stalked over to it. "These brats are going to pay!"
Gloop!
The Hogwarts Caretaker was experienced enough with the Weasley twins that he knew something bad was going to happen. His cat Mrs. Norris refused to go near them because of the dog incident. So he was only a little surprised as the potion exploded out of the bottle like a fountain.
Filch yelled out as the liquid quickly started to cover the floor and fill the room. He tried to make his way towards the door, but within seconds it was up to his waist.
"Blasted kids!"
With a groan, the door opened up under the pressure of the brown liquid and spilled out into the hallway. Filch's cussing filled the air as he fond himself body surfing the liquid as it raced down the corridor.
--
Fred and George watched as about a hundred thousand gallons of liquid chocolate spilled out the front doors of the castle. They spotted several first year students, a couple suits of armor, a screaming portrait, and Filch turning the air blue with his cussing.
"Wicked!"
"We Rule!"