Disclaimer: Guess what? I do not own this! No really, I don't!
"Speech" "Other Language" 'Thoughts' Parseltongue
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Chapter 14 – Burning Light
'Bloody Hell!' he cursed, and burst into a run. With the corner of his eye, he could see countless figures moving around him, and curses fracturing the stone ground. Suddenly, his road was cut by 20 vampires, while several more surrounded him from all sides. Harry could also hear the voices of wizards muttering and could literarily feel the wand-points concentrated on him.
"Hand it ober!" said a voice with a heavy accent.
- - - - - - - - -
He drew one up into the air in a signal of peace, put his wand on the floor, and reached into his robes until he felt some objects against his hand. He grabbed all his light producing stones, and launched them into the air, shouting the incantation, as the shouts from those surrounding him filled his ears.
At the same time, he closed his eyes and fell to the hard, cold granite floor, grabbing his wand and rolling away from the curses that hit the place he was standing seconds before.
As the light started subsiding, he cast a strong shield, and reached for the kerosene filled containers he had. He ran at full speed towards the screaming and very pissed-off vampires blocking his way, and, after casting a flame repellent charm, launched the containers to the nearest torches.
The effect was phenomenal. A 40 meter sphere of kerosene covered the hall, and promptly turned into a blazing red inferno, consuming the bodies of any creature unlucky enough to be caught in it.
Harry felt the scorching heat of the fireball clash with his magical shield, sparks flying all around him. Struggling against the enormous strain, he pushed past the columns of fire and went into the stone passageway ahead of him.
Ignoring the sharp pain in his leg, caused by a desperate lunge from a burning vampire moments before, he ran as fast as he could, the fire behind him lighting his way, the orange and red lights locked in an intricately fatal dance.
In the background, he could still hear a blazing siren, signalling to the world that he was here and needed to be dealt with…promptly. Some unlucky people found him then and tried to do just that.
"Fortis, Sectumsembra, Pulsus!" he cried, blasting the three surprised wizards that stood in his way. He ran past their bodies, firing fireballs and explosion curses ahead of him. He came to a larger cave, and immediately ducked behind some rocks, with three killing curses striking the place where he was located minutes before.
"Serpensontia, Serpensontia." He whispered, conjuring two large black-scaled cobras. Attack he ordered, hissing in parseltongue.
The two snakes launched themselves at the wizards, who stepped back, a mixture of surprise and fear in their faces. The distraction gave Harry the time to launch a barrage of curses, sending two of them to the underworld.
The last one managed to duck in time, and vanished the two snakes. "Avada Kedavra!" he called, but Harry had already moved away, and the wizard soon found a sword poking through his throat.
'Trainees' thought Harry with a slight disdain 'You'd think they would get some people with experience to guard such a facility'
He cast some powerful illusion charms on his body, and climbed up the nearby stairwell. He came to a large corridor, and crept slowly across it. Soon, he ducked into the shade behind a column and held his breath as about 50 vampires and 20 wizards ran past the place he was hiding.
He watched them, his stomach clenched, as they disappeared around the corner, and let out a sigh of relief. His body tensed again however, when he felt something behind him. Whipping around, he instinctively raised his sword, blocking the vampire that tried to cut his head in two. Pushing back with all his strength, he managed to throw the vampire of him, and with a quick curse, he spread its brains all over the floor.
He stood there, trying to catch his breath, for about 5 seconds, but his heart started beating frantically when he heard the sounds of the battle group that had just passed returning, having heard the commotion.
He turned around the nearest corner, an arrow of fire singing the edge of his robes as it whizzed by him. Still, he knew that they would soon overtake him, so he pointed his wand up to the ceiling and, concentrating all his magic, bellowed:
"EXPLODRA!"
A column of red light came from his wand, which shook under the force of the magic channelled through it. The ceiling cracked, and soon came tumbling down with a roar, while Harry desperately tried to get away from the falling stones and dust. From what he could hear from the other side of the tunnel, it seemed like some of the vampires weren't as lucky.
With one last, fleeting glance at the blocked passage, he ran on ahead, until he reached a large steel door. He tried opening it, it wouldn't budge. Tiredly, he pointed his wand at the door and concentrated heavily.
With a bang, he sent the door flying, creating a small flaming hole in the ground, 20 meters away. Under the mass of steel, he saw a vampiric hand writhing helplessly.
'Well, that should teach them not to sit behind doors.' He thought humorously, and ran into the nearby tunnels. Once he was relatively safe, judging from the fact that most of the troops in the camp had gone to the treasury to search for the "Invaders."
As he walked on, he noticed the stone walls slowly giving way to earth and gravel.
'Must be in some abandoned area…just as well, they've probably blocked all the exits by now…If I walk far enough, I might manage to get out of the anti-apparition wards.' He though, as he absentmindedly kicked a spare stone from his path.
Eventually the torches became fewer and fewer, and soon Harry conjured a floating orb of light to follow him around. He reached a cave where there were 3 different routes for him to take.
"Maculus" he muttered, twirling his wand towards the ceiling. A large red mark appeared, the light from his orb reflecting off it making it an odd shade of crimson.
Satisfied with his work, Harry softly said: "Point me north" and took the northernmost passage, remembering from the maps he had seen that north would lead away from the facility and the mountain, and most likely to an area outside the wards.
He walked on. And on, and on, and on. The tunnel became moist, and the constant dripping of water echoed in the tunnels. Soon, it turned into a roaring thunder as Harry found himself at a ledge overlooking an underground river, carrying tonnes of molten snow from the Alpine peaks.
Harry briefly considered whether jumping into the river with a combination of heating, bubblehead and shield charms would help him get out, but finally decided against it, saving it as a measure of last resort.
Continuing north, he slowed his pace when he heard whispered voices. Vanishing the orb of light following him, he let his eyes adjust to the dark and crept forwards.
He heard one of the wizards nearby moaning, catching only spare words like Ich hasse. Another one responded with something that Harry did not hear, causing the first one to laugh. Pointing at the direction of the sound, Harry soon had them both disarmed and bound.
He walked up to them. The first one was fairly young, and looked at him with hatred and fear. Gambling on the chances that this was a fairly raw recruit and had little formal training in protecting his mind, Harry jabbed his wand towards the wizard's forehead, shouting "Legilimens!"
He filed through the young man's brain, but got only disjointed images at first. Impatient and enraged, he thrust his magic in a form very much like the crucatius curce, raping the wizard's brain to gain the necessary information. Once satisfied, he released the wizard from his hold, letting him fall to the ground, his heart still beating but his mind forever gone.
The man next to him had stared in terror while the boy's eyes turned crimson and his comrade screamed before falling dead. Now, he watched the boy turn its gaze on him, and the last thing he saw was a green flash of light before he too fell dead.
Harry left the two bodies behind, and run through narrow, twisting paths in what looked almost like a maze, having etched a map of the area in his head. He finally came to a spot where roots were dangling from the ceiling, spider-webs perched amongst them. Finding an area relatively clear of routes, he pressed his wand against the cold soil and yelled "Explodra!"
A rain of stone and earth came tumbling down towards him, but his magic batted it easily to the side. Soon, the earth turned into frozen snow, and Harry Potter was staring at a clear night sky.
Conjuring a fur cloak to protect him from the cold, he climbed outside the hole his spell had opened, his fingers protesting against the icy feel of the snow they were buried in. Harry ignored them and ploughed a path through the snow with his wand, moving as fast as he could.
Once he moved for about five kilometres, he felt himself exiting the anti-apparition wards, and concentrated on the nearest branch of Gringotts. With a loud crack and a sigh of relief, Harry Potter left behind the masses of snow in the Alps.
o0o
"We cannot even begin to show our gratitude for your help today Mr Potter" said a Goblin sage for what Harry felt was the 100th time.
He was sitting in a large and comfortable bed deep within London's Gringotts, his wounds treated by a team of unusually eager Goblin medics. Their methods, while rather…unique by wizarding standards, were nonetheless effective.
"We have healed your injuries Mr Potter." Said one of the medics, before frowning and continuing hesitantly: "Yet it seems that your core may have been damaged by some curse…there is a rift in it, almost as if something tried to make it split into two. It already shows signs of healing, and we believe that given time and rest it should re-unite. There seem to be some residues of a dark infection, but they are rapidly dissipating."
'Probably my cores are merging…I didn't know they could check that type of thing.' Thought Harry, while saying: "Thank you doctor. I'll make sure to follow your advice."
He felt a slight headache as he lowered his occulmency shields a bit, with the purpose of relaxing. 'Everything seems so jumbled in there' he reflected. 'I'll have to resort my mind defences and magical connections sometime soon…I haven't checked on them since I arrived here…' he continued, while he slipped off the hospital bed and was directed to a changing room by the goblins.
He slipped on his robes, which after the cleaning and repairing they had undergone, looked better than when he had bought them. 'Almost like silk' he reflected, while watching the black fabric slip over his arms.
'I really need to train…after all, my magic is like a muscle, nothing can substitute work, not even a gigantic infusion of a second core…just like a child's core needs to be tamed, though unconsciously, to stop its release of wild magic, I have to discipline and cultivate myself…add that to a restructuring of my pathways and learning something other than battle magiks…' feeling the onset of a headache once more, he stopped.
It was almost as if he had some form of magical adrenaline, which kept him going before, but now he wanted nothing more than to sink into the nearest bed. Feeling the weight of the stolen Slytherin book in his pocket, he left Gringotts bank.
'It was almost like a test' he told his body, which was complaining heavily 'They wanted to see how strong and committed I am…I wanted to see whether I can do this…and I couldn't let the orb be taken by Voldemort.'
The orb, or the Gwahri-Keina as it came to be known in his old timeline, was truly a powerful device. Voldemort had never figured out how to use it properly, for that knowledge was forever lost in time, but he had managed to reverse engineer it into a ghastly device that had ended the last hopes of wizarding Britain to win the war against him…
He could still remember it…the proud faces of wizards who had come from every corner of the commonwealth. For once, it stood united, the disagreements between its ministries forgotten, as by now every nation faced war.
Unlike its muggle counterpart, magical Europe still held its colonies, and by extension a great sway over the globe. Some had broken away after the first great magical war with Grindenwald, but there were still enough to amass a force of 1,000 wizards, almost a tenth of the population of Magical Britain itself . Add that to the increasing number of muggleborns, which were beginning to match purebloods, and you had an actual army.
Well, any muggle general would have scoffed at it, calling it a 'rag-tag militia' at best, and 'some protesters with wands' at worst. Still, for the people harried by the violence of the dark lord, it was a symbol of a new age, their liberation army.
Perhaps one of the first real wizarding armies to ever exist, considering that up to now, "wars" were mostly duels between small number of wizards, with the occasional appearance of magical creatures to aid them. Still, the wizarding world was too small to have standing armies, only some small, harried and overextended police forces and gangs. Which was one of the reasons why the notion of such a large force banding together made people so confident of victory.
Granted, Voldemort had his supporters as well…a large force from the continent which had largely fallen under his grasp, various native wizards and tribes which detested the control of the ministry…many elitists which hated their muggle cousins. Voldemort outnumbered them by far. Yet they still had hope.
A hope that was blasted away along with most of Paris at the turn of the millennium. The goblin orb was destroyed as well, but Voldemort had no need of it, as most of the resistance in Britain and the rest of Europe dissipated at this time.
Now however, the orb would stay with the goblins. And perhaps, seeing as he had their allegiance, he would manage to find some other use for it…
He broke off his train of thoughts as he noticed a shadow moving ahead of him. Instinctively, he had his wand pointed at the shadow, but relaxed when he noticed that it was just a stray cat.
Seeing the first rays of light coming from the horizon, he decided it would be best to get to sleep as soon as possible, and blame his late rising on teenage laziness.
He levitated himself into the apartment via the window and crept along the floor to his room. He took off his robe, tossing it at a nearby chair, and turned to dismantle the illusion he had placed on his bed before lying down.
The illusion that wasn't there.
Suddenly, the magical torches lighted up to their full intensity.
"It's about time." said a stern looking Sirius Black, who was sitting heavily in a green armchair.
"Oh…er…hello Sirius, didn't see you there." said Harry feebly.
"Obviously. Now where have you been?"
"Well…around…" offered Harry.
"Don't give me that! Do you know how worried I've been?"
"Don't be so serious Sirius!" said Harry, making an attempt at a joke "It's not like you weren't outside at times like this at my age!"
"Well, that was at Hogwarts" countered Sirius, though Harry could see the brief flicker of a smile in his face. "It was much safer there!"
"It's not like I walked into a dark wizard camp…what kind of marauder are you anyway?"
"Don't try to make me the subject matter here! I promised James that I would take care of you if anything happened, and I fully intend to do so!" declared Sirius, his voice rising.
"Well, you do not have to act like a mother hen! Okay, so I was outside having some fun, it looks like I inherited my father's penchant for trouble, is it that bad?"
"Don't you understand how worrying it is? Especially after all the time you spent in the hospital wing last year, I have to make sure you are alright." said the man, his features softening.
"I'm sorry for making you worried Sirius." said Harry softly "You don't need to worry about me…after all, if I can take on a Basilisk, there isn't much that can stop me is there?"
"Maybe." he offered, rising. "Now go to sleep young man, we'll talk more about this tomorrow."
With a groan, Harry fell on his bed, asleep before his head hit the pillow.
o0o
In the end, after some long discussions, Harry was forced to stay in the apartment for a week. Though he could have broken the tracking charms Sirius placed on him easily, he decided not to escalate the tensions.
But he did unleash a flurry of pranks, which helped aid his claims that he was following his father's path by being outside. It reached such an extent, that in the end a dripping wet Sirius with pink hair shouted that he would report Harry to the ministry for use of underage magic if he carried on.
Even if Harry doubted he would go that far.
As the summer rolled on, tensions calmed down and their relationship war restored to normal. Harry eventually had the freedom to stay outside for fairly extended periods of time, though he had to be back at a reasonable time.
Harry developed quite a liking to the fine cuisine that the goblins offered, much to Sirius's dismay, as he now found that he often had to cook his own charred excuses for lunch in his godson's absence. Not that he knew where the boy ate, despite his numerous enquiries.
As the end of August rolled around, Harry managed to convince his godfather to let him visit the Weasleys for the run-up to his birthday. He grudgingly let him go, and the red-head family was more than happy to accept him.
Which is why today, while waking up, he was faced with a blinding sea of orange. He covered his eyes, groaning with an internal battle of whether to get up or not, when his nose captured the tell-tale scent of breakfast. Loosing any compunction he had, he threw his covers off and ran to the bathroom.
After he finished with his morning activities, he left, finding a very irate Ginny Weasley in the corridor, looking as if she wanted to burn a hole in the wooden wall.
"What's wrong?" he inquired, stopping right on the frayed red carpet.
"That woman!" she said in a furious whisper, her eyes shining with a hidden fire. "I just can't take it! Its like she's trying to tie my up with her apron until I have no personality! Just because she couldn't fulfil her ambitions herself or through dad she expects me to do it for her! She...she…she's a bully!" she ranted.
"Well, at least this has made you develop your slyness and your Slytherin talents." offered Harry.
"I would have had those without her strangling me! On the one hand I have her trying to make me into a new perfect Percy and on the other hand I have the twins trying to make me into their carbon copies. They act like I am property! No consideration for my own personality." She went on, her hair arranged in a halo of fire around her, while her expression reminded him of an angry tiger.
"Caught in the battlefield aren't you?"
"I tried laying low for the past, but it is like she has a claim on me! And it gets worse with Hogwarts…stop smiling like that! It isn't funny!" she said, turning towards him and giving him a playful punch on the shoulder.
'Seems like the diary made them lay off her in the past world…here, she has fallen in the middle of the battle…oh poor Arthur, why did you have to fall in love with muggle gadgets?"
"Don't worry. I'm sure it'll be alright."
"Once I get back to Hogwarts, it will be better…but for now she's gone ballistic…you'd think that after winning the lottery and going to Egypt she might calm down, but even Bill seemed scared of her!" She sighed, looking almost resigned and apprehensive, if it wasn't for the steel glint in her eyes that made it clear in no uncertain terms that she wouldn't submit to her Mother's will.
"That bad?"
"He got an earring…you should have heard Mom scream! She turned on me when I tried to defend him…she's been treating us all like babies for the past week. Oh well. I'll certainly show her when the Shades rule over all of Britain!" she exclaimed triumphantly, raising her fist in the air.
"What about the twins?"
"I don't really worry about them…they are only trying to make sure I don't become a creature with no will, even if their way is rather…energetic. I quite like living with them on normal days…though normal and the Twins don't really go very well together."
"Wait until you're older…then you will have even more pressure." offered Harry wisely.
"Oh, I'm sure we are more than capable of taking care of that Harry. Now, you should come downstairs, Mom shouted something about calling you down before I left." she prepared to bounce off, visibly happier, before she stopped.
"By the way Harry, I need your help."
"Why certainly my fair princess. What dragon needeth slaying?" asked Harry in a fake Victorian Accent.
Ginny let out a snort. "I could take on the dragon myself! I need you to teach me occulmency."
"Are you sure? Most minds are not sufficiently organised for it before the age of 16…"
"Well, we can always try. I've made some progress on my own, but I am beyond the stage where a few books can help me." she offered, folding her hands.
"Hmm…Allow me?" he offered, extending his wand. At Ginny's nod, he whispered "Legilimens!" sending a soft mind nudge in her direction.
After a brief struggle, he started seeing some disjointed images of her childhood. He quickly retreated.
"You felt it right?" he asked Ginny, who was now panting.
"Felt it? What was that? It was overwhelming!" she said furiously.
"Well, most wizards aren't as powerful as me, so you should find stopping them easier. You are good for a beginner, but you need work on it."
"Obviously" she said dryly. "So you will help me then?" she asked, now looking uncertain.
"Of course! How could I pass up on an opportunity to find embarrassing material on you?"
Ginny blushed at this, before her look turned into that of a lioness. "Don't you dare…"
"Oh don't worry, I'll do no such thing." He said, walking towards the stairs. "Though I might 'accidentally'…"
"POTTER!" she exclaimed in a strained and hushed whisper, her blush deepening.
"Okay, Okay." Laughed Harry "Come on, let's eat."
o0o
"Why not take divination? It will be easy?" whined Ron.
"Boring more like. The old hag that teaches it does nothing other than drawl on and on about death and other misfortunes. Though I suppose it would be amusing to make up predictions for homework."
"But ancient runes? What would you need THAT for?"
"Many of the cool spells are written or casted in the ancient tongues. And I can't go around without having those spells now can I?" questioned Harry.
"The only person in that class will be Hermione and a few Ravenclaws…come to think of it, what classes to you think Hermione will take?"
"Probably all of them" said Harry distractedly. He briefly considered the possibility of whether he should warn her about using a time-turner, but decided against it in light of it being a valuable lesson on her limits. Without it, she might continue showing off as an extraordinary student. 'In fact' he thought on it further 'that may very well be the reason McGonagall lets her have it in the first place.'
"Probably should see if I can set up some kind of healing apprenticeship with Madam Pomfrey" he muttered "heaven knows I've spent an inordinate amount of time there…" 'Plus, it would calm some of the fears about me… healing magic lessons is not something a wannabe dark lord would be prone to take…'
"Why do you even need to take all this stuff?" complained Ron "You are already better than all of us."
"Which is why all these classes are so boring…I want something different." answered Harry, fiddling with a quill whilst pondering on whether or not to start on his witch burning essay. "All these classes look like History of Magic to me.
"But you are still going to take Care of Magical Creatures right?" asked Ron, hopeful that there would be at least one class he would share with his friend.
"Naturally…who wouldn't want to go around hunting giant beasties? Hagrid's going to be our new teacher from what I understand…by the way, when you try to buy the book he assigned, pet it in the spine to stop it from going crazy"
"Pet the what?" exclaimed Ron, looking lost.
"The book Ron, the book. Trust me, you'll know what I'm talking about once you get it." said Harry yawning and deciding that starting his essay now was abso-bloody-pointless. "Fancy a quidditch game Ron?" he asked the red-head, who was looking at him exasperated.
"Quidditch! Sure!" exclaimed the boy, looking happy to leave the painful subject of school in the dusted depths of memory.
o0o
"Where is Hermione? She said she would be here today." said Ron, peering around in Diagon alley. The area was uncommonly crowded, as it was August 31 and everyone was desperately doing their last minute shopping.
"Don't worry, she'll come." said Ginny, rolling her eyes "Now come to Olivander's! Mom said we could buy new wands!"
"I only hope it doesn't take as long for you as it did for me…and that you don't get the same surprise I did." muttered Harry.
"Why, what happened to you?" said Ginny while walking towards the wand shop.
"Creepy old man told me how it is 'most curious' I got this wand, because it is the brother wand to the dark lord's."
Ginny stopped at this and turned towards him "Really? You know, they say that often people with brother wands share many characteristics…"
"I know." cut in Harry. "Olivander, in his spooky style, told me that the world can expect great things from me…because Voldemort did great things…terrible, but great. And I am, after all, the greatest wizard in the world!" he finished, striking a victorious pose.
"You certainly have one of the biggest heads in the world" laughed Ginny. "Now come on 'my lord', your loyal followers need to get their wands."
In the end, it took them quite some time get new wands. Ron found a 14 inch willow wand with a unicorn hear-string soon enough, but it took Ginny over half an hour before she acquired a 12 inch alder wand with a dragon heartstring. Harry didn't miss the strange wind that blew around the shop when she found it, nor did he miss Olivander's eyes move from her wand to him, with an uncommon calculating glint.
As they left the shop they heard two voices calling their names. They turned, spotting Neville and Hermione running towards them.
"Good to see you" said Ginny smiling "Is that a new cat Hermione?" she asked, pointing at a ginger cat with a bottle-brush tail and what looked like a face that had endured an unfortunate impact with a hammer.
"Yes. He's Crookshanks. I got him at the menagerie…he was there for so long the poor thing…" she answered, looking sweetly at the cat.
"No wo…" started Ron, but stopped abruptly when Ginny stepped on his foot. "Er, that is an interesting cat."
"It's a part Kneazle. Very intelligent, just like Hermione." offered Harry.
"Really? I didn't think of that! You're right."
"Naturally." Muttered Ginny under her breath. "Well, where to now?" she asked in a louder voice, placing her hands on her hair and tying it into a bundle.
"Let's go to Quality Quidditch Supplies!" jumped Ron at the opportunity "I hear they've brought this new broom…"
Harry turned towards him. "The firebolt. Pretty good one, Sirius said that he'll buy it for a Christmas present so I can 'smash the Slytherins to cinders'."
"You don't need a firebolt to do that." said Ginny.
"No, but it will make it much more fun. Anyway, Mrs Weasley said that we have to go and check you all in at the leaky cauldron."
"Yes, my parents and I will be staying there too before I leave tomorrow." added Hermione "we should go there now."
Ron just followed them, disappointed.
o0o
Platform 9 ¾ was bustling with traffic, but a particularly large group, over half of it Red-heads, took up a large portion of the area.
"And remember to obey the number 1 rule:" started Sirius "don't get caught. Okay?"
"I will, don't worry my dear 'dog'father. Though I'll have a hard time with Remus around, if he knows every trick won't I?"
"Well, I am sure that I can turn a blind eye…so long as you don't target me." Offered the brown-haired man.
"Oh, I don't think you have to worry about me. But certain others…" he cast a furtive glance towards the twins, who were discussing something with Lee Thomas.
"Well, I know most of the tricks of the trade, I should be able to handle it." said Lupin.
"It will probably give them an extra incentive…but anyway, we better get on now." came from Harry.
The group finished their goodbyes, and boarded the train. Ginny, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Neville quickly scampered off to find a compartment of their own.
They sat, chattering happily and saying hello to various classmates, until the train picked up speed.
"Something wrong?" asked Harry when, halfway through the journey to Hogwarts, he saw Ginny next to him shiver.
"No…just…I felt as if something bad was on the verge of happening, but didn't…strange…" she muttered, trailing off, deep in thought. At that time, the door opened and Malfoy appeared.
Ginny let out a growl and adopted the position of a tiger, ready to pounce. Ron too was glaring towards the Slytherins, but Harry acted before any of them
"Oh, hello Draco. Here, sit down." said Harry, patting the seat next to him.
The boy looked bewildered for a moment before snapping back. "A Malfoy would never associate with mudbloods and blood-traitors!" he declared.
"Why the social call then?" enquired Harry "We would really value your company."
At this, the other members of the compartment started at him in shock, except Ginny who was managing to keep a straight face, though Harry could tell she was about to burst from laughter.
"Wh…Well, I wouldn't value yours!" he half-screamed.
"Oh Draco…a pretty boy like you shouldn't have those thugs for company." said Harry, batting his eyelashes "Come…here…I'm sure I can be better…company…than them….unless you prefer it with more…participants" he continued, sending off some magic and stressing his every word.
Malfoy took a step back, falling into Crabbe and Goyle. He closed the compartment door and left, faster than Harry had ever seen him go.
At that moment, Ginny fell to the floor, clutching her ribs. Harry joined her in laughter a few seconds later. The others looked confused, before letting out some snorts.
"Much as I enjoy cursing him, this is much more fun." said Ginny, when she got control of her breath again.
"Right you are. Though we could always use both." answered Harry.
"No need to bully people Harry." said Hermione, though she didn't look too opposed to the idea.
The rest of the journey passed without incident, and soon Harry was fast asleep. He was awoken by Ginny as they neared the station, when she shook him and said, with her mouth arranged in a lop-sided smile:
"Harry, stop drooling all over me and get up."
"Eh? Oh yeah. Sorry." He said, getting up and rubbing his stiff neck. "I think it's time to put our robes on isn't it?"
"Yes…we are almost there." said Hermione, reaching for her bag and putting her robes over her clothing. The rest of the compartment silently followed her example.
The train stopped, and it was not long before the group found itself in a carriage, on the way to Hogwarts. Harry glanced wearily at the thestrals pulling the carriage, before sinking back on his seat, rubbing his forehead.
Rain was pouring down when they made it to the main doors, which meant that they had to run fast, causing Ron to fall head-first into a puddle of water, much to the group's amusement.
They laughed even more when filch came along and gave Ron a loud telling-off about staining his floor and walked off muttering "Lousy children…term hasn't even started yet…always up to trouble…should chain them to the wall I say…"
"It isn't funny!" complained Ron, growing increasingly frustrated.
"Oh, for Merlin's sake! Tergeo!" casted Harry, siphoning off all the water, making Ron dry once more. "Well, lets go inside shall we? Dinner shouldn't take too long."
Harry mentally fast-forwarded through the sorting and Dumbledore's speech and his announcement of Hagrid and Remus's new teaching positions, quite happily filling his stomach with the well prepared Hogwarts food the first chance he got.
The feast had finished, and the Gryffindors were slowly getting up for their dorm, when Harry was approached by McGonagall.
"Mr Potter, I would like to have a word with you about your classes." she said.
"Okay professor." answered Harry. He felt the enquiring looks the others gave him and gave them a silent order to go on, so he was left alone with the Gryffindor head of house.
"I understand you expressed a wish to start an apprentice with Madam Pomfrey?" enquired his head of house.
"Certainly professor. I feel that I have considerable talent that is currently untapped."
"And you would like to take the path of a healer?"
"It is an option I am seriously considering."
At his point, she fixed him with a stern look. "Normally, such a thing would not be done except for some of our brightest, NEWT level students. You have to be commited to this, for it is not something easy to do."
"I understand professor. I will put forth all my effort." 'Not that I would learn anything new around here anyway…this way, apart from the knowledge of healing and protection magicks, I would also have access to the hospital wing.'
"Very well. Since you have shown such talent already, we will allow you a test period for this year. If you show promise, we will allow you to continue. But you must understand that this will be very demanding, and I wouldn't want to see your performance in other lessons fall." she said, firmly.
"Certainly professor. I won't disappoint you."
McGonagall smiled kindly. "I know you won't Harry. Now go to the dorms, you will probably have a hard day tomorrow. Goodnight."
"Goodnight Professor." said Harry, before leaving, rapidly, up the staircase, before disappearing behind a portrait.
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J.K Rowling has said that there are about 3,000 wizards in Britain, but as that number does not seem very logical, and Rowling is known to be, by her own admittance, rather…. inaccurate in her numbers (not that it really matters anyway), I took the liberty of raising it to about 11000 wizards.
So, if muggle/wizard ratios world wide were equal, there would be about 1,150,000 wizards in the world…factor in wars, undiscovered muggleborns and disease, and let's say we have about 1,000,000 wizards in the world. Just to keep in mind the world we are in…after all, Moldy-warts is trying to take over…