AN: A Wild Update has appeared! Quick, grab the Master Ball. All jokes aside, it feels good to come back to some of our older ideas and give them a little bit of a polish. Don't ya think so, partner?

AtW: Yeah. Not sure I really wanna post. Or even write. As for anyone reading this… you can thank me for disappearing. Wyvern is actually doing NaNoWriMo and is doing great at that and his Fate story. So go check him out. Still, this is probably good for me and I shouldn't be a doomer, so I hope you enjoy it.

Wyvern: Now then, onto the reading!

Heracleidae - Origins V

Harry Potter

Despite the rather startling revelations from the secret meeting he attended last night, Harry was still required to attend classes the morning after.

And it wasn't like it changed much.

Harry still felt that the whole half blood deal was a bit surreal, but he considered it just another part of his new life in Hogwarts. Even if the mentions of his father by Miss Hipolyta still made him feel dubious over meeting a man he thought was dead his entire life.

He was also a bit… disappointed. Not because of who his father was, but because the revelation hadn't done anything to make him feel better. Only remind him that he was considered special because of something other people did, and not something he had done by himself.

The simple fact of the matter was that he had been a baby when certain things happened, but so many people seemed to consider that in itself to be spectacular, to be something worth celebrating. Halloween had even become a major holiday where the whole of the wizarding world celebrated the death of Voldemort - largely because the "Dark Lord" had crossed over onto the continent and tortured a number of political opponents to death.

Not that he was particularly affected by the night in hindsight, he had never known his family after all, but it all seemed a bit like the kind of thing the Dursleys might have found funny.

Frankly, the news was all so overwhelming that the young man was actually glad he had school work to focus on. Doing something for himself and by himself was better than thinking about how everyone saw you as your parent's kid only.

Well he said focus, but it was only for a given value.

The short of it was that half bloods were terrible at staying put for anything, as had been explained to him. Harry had always just been told he was a useless lout that was good for nothing but making trouble, that he couldn't keep from making problems whenever the slightest degree of restraint was called for.

And classes definitely counted as a time and place were restraint was needed.

It wasn't his fault that words couldn't seem to stay put whenever he tried to read them. And things only got worse when his leg began to uncomfortably bump against the table. Back on Privet Drive he'd learned how to control himself, lest he get a box about the ears, but right now the young man felt like ants were crawling across his skin. So, as the preteen fidgeted and desperately wished he owned a watch, the wait to leave class seemed to grow longer and more unbearable as the day went.

By the time he got to History of Magic, Harry felt like jumping out the window.

Anything was better than having to write another essay on the twentieth goblin revolution and who caused it.

And not just because they all blended together, but because they always ended with the goblins winning some incremental victory atop mountains of dead, the Wizards pretending like they were perfect and flawless warriors, and no one really noticed how the goblins seemed to control the entirety of the magical banking system - something Mrs. Hippolyta seemed to bring up rather often!

Maybe that rather pointed… point was missed because the teacher in question was a ghost.

Thankfully he was able to last through Binns' class because Charms was next. Sure, it was still school, sure he still had to take notes and practice safety and write essays, and yeah he often got bored when it was time for that stuff too. But Professor Flitwick was different.

Professor Flitwick was fun!

Things got to fly and blow up in his class!

Well, they blew up that one time when Seamus mispronounced a spell and something caught fire. But Harry maintained that was the highlight of his week, though maybe not the Gryffindor's. He had needed Madame Pomfrey to use a couple potions to clean off the spell-born soot and ash.

Today was also an interesting class, though he was disappointed to find there wouldn't be any practice.

But that was fine - at least when Flitwick was teaching there were always pictures.

"And here we have one of the earliest examples of a warded home found on Crete. This location is considered by many charms specialists to be the first use of a muggle repelling charm. We haven't been able to completely reconstruct it, but the charm work remains functional to this day, as no Muggle seems to notice its existence."

On a massive wooden table, levitated to sit in the middle of the rows of desks - which had themselves magically realigned to surround the central platform, there was a full color transmogrified display of ancient Cretan ruins. It even had tiny people, wizards and muggles alike, either looking over the ruins or simply acting like it didn't exist.

Yes, the "picture" definitely helped.

But the area was just brilliant!

This was a fragment of ancient Greece, the same place Hipolyta had been forcing Harry to read about nonstop ever since he started being tutored by her. But she hadn't mentioned the magical side of things, only who was whose cousin back then, and how to act when you talked to people so you didn't get hit by a stray lightning bolt - or something worse.

Of course he'd wondered if gods had something to do with magic. Some of the stories his tutor told him definitely included it and Gemma explained to him that when she goes to summer camp her teachers tell her how to avoid all sorts of curses and broken vows. And that she didn't need to worry about it because her mother was apparently infamous for those things, meaning no one was stupid enough to try and get one over on her because her mom would rip their eyes out, string them up with their own intestines, make them kill their own kith and kin, and possibly torment their souls because it was funny.

Harry had gained newfound respect and fear for the prefect that day… and resolved to avoid going to the island where she trained at all costs.

'Seriously, at least Hippolyta doesn't kick spears at me and call it training.'

"Interestingly, the charms themselves are on the border of what might be better called 'enchanting'. Critically, the difference between a charm and an enchantment is that a charm is cast on an object, in the technical sense of the word, while an enchantment is bound to an object. Who can tell me what the chief difference between binding and casting is?"

Six or so hands shot up, Herminoe's barely edging out that of Malfoy's with the rest of the others raising their hands being Slytherins.

"Oh, I do say, that was a close one. Hmm. Ms. Granger, you first, then Mr. Malfoy! A bit of an edge to you both, so let's see who has the best answer."

And just like that, the Gryffindor girl got a dirty glare from half of the Slytherins in the class.

"Thank you Professor!" Not that Harry's friend - and didn't that word just make him squirm about all the harder - seemed to notice or care. No, her eyes were locked on the moving, living display in front of them. "Primarily, a charm is a wand or ritual cast spell intended to achieve a specific effect or effects. This is done by imprinting the energy with the caster's will and enforcing the caster's will with magic." At this point, she had to stop and take a breath before continuing on with just as much verve as before. "Enchanting utilizes a focus which has an array carved into it, this array may be sigilitic, runic, arithmetic, or ochric, with the array focusing otherwise undirected magic in the desired manner."

"Five points to Gryffindor - and do take a breath Ms. Granger." Turning to the display, the charms master flicked his wand. Summoning up a dozen different boards, scrolls fell from the top of each and words began inking themselves on each of them. "A textbook perfect answer. In fact, I do believe that's from the very book I issue my third years." Chuckling, Flitwick clapped his hands and the wooden boards began to levitate allowing everyone to see the display again. "With that said, Mr. Malfoy, would you like to add anything?"

Harry knew his yearmate's immediate response would be to call Granger a know it all mudblood, something he wished the witch would stop letting visibly affect her. After all, once the half blood had learned how to hide his flinches then both Vernon and Dudley had stopped smacking him quite so much.

It was more boring for a bully when you didn't react.

"I would point out that charms are also an active form of magic, requiring re-application or additional support to extend their effects." Biting his lip, the blonde then continued speaking, clearly trying to remember something that Hermione might not have learned. "And… that enchanting is actually an older form of magic. That ritual generated enchantments were one of the earliest forms of magic, along with divination and sacrificial magic."

"Indeed!" Clapping his hands, Flitwick changed the writing once again - this time a timeline of various types of magic and when they were formally postulated appearing under the definitions. "Write this all down boys and girls, you'll be wanting to have this knowledge going forwards. Five points to Slytherin Mr. Malfoy!"

Flicking his wand, the professor changed the display once again.

People disappeared, bricks danced along themselves, the air and sky and dirt shuddered and began to flow. Instead, before the enthralled students, a dozen classical Greeks stood in front of a simple, low building.

Much broader than it was high, there seemed to be about eight or ten rooms to Harry, though he couldn't quite see everything. Part of the building was obviously a stable where half a dozen goats, a smattering of sheep, pigs, and chickens, and even a trio of mules rested or grazed as they pleased. This was of pressing importance because they were very, very fluffy and one of the sheep had a small baby at its side.

All of which meant the demigod wanted to try and pet the small animals.

"The reason why the Greeks were considered to be of particular note relates to their tendency to merge various fields of magic. What's amusing is that they did, in fact, have a grasp of both charms and enchantments - as the early Minoans delineated between 'the works of mortals' and 'the works of gods'."

Unfortunately for the young man, his awfully cruel teacher didn't pause the lecture to open a petting zoo.

"Interestingly, charms were considered to be an imitation of the acts of so called gods. Because they were at will effects that could be achieved by means of a ritual, whether great or small, these charms no longer required the incredible precision of the early works of magic. It was considered an innovation on par with that of the Egyptian's achievements in life extension and the discovery of the early forms of familiar magics by the people of Ghaggar-Hakra."

Trying to write down what was being covered, the demigod did his best to keep up with all the new names and the places - even if he only vaguely knew about Egypt and had no idea what Ghaggar-Hakra was.

"However, some of the Classical Greeks were able to do something that only Rowena Ravenclaw herself has been said to be able to rival - permanent charms. Many of their spells are described as being erected by gods, or demigods, or those 'with the blood of the Immortals', this last phrase being the most commonly associated with the gods and demigods only very rarely labeled by name, but distinct for reasons sadly beyond our knowledge."

At this point, the young man was doing his best to keep up. However, as his hand writing continued to degenerate, he knew it was something of a lost cause. As more dates and names and places were rattled off, Harry felt sheer frustration welling up within him.

To a degree, he was failing himself.

Partly he was failing his teacher.

But most of all… he was failing a friend. Gemma spent so long and so much effort trying to teach him to write, cramming every little trick into his head that she could, and still the young man could barely keep up in a half legible, half backwards scrawl.

That, more than anything else, made him desperately wish class would end.

Draco Malfoy

"So then I got the blood traitor to agree to duel in the trophy room at midnight!"

Draco couldn't help but puff out his chest a bit. Their little corner of the library was delightfully empty, just the five of them. Himself, of course, as the leader, sat at the head of the study table, Greg and Vince to his right and left, with Tracey and Harry opposite them. All of them had their work out, though only four of them were actually putting quill to page, as he was more than confident with his own notes. The lowest score he'd gotten this year had been only a single point off - from his own Godfather nonetheless - on a potion where he'd been two stirs counterclockwise too many.

A fair correction, as were all of Professor Snape's deductions, but one that stung him as Granger, the bloody Gryffindor, had gotten full marks. It had, in fact, irked him enough that he'd gone after Weasley, her only friend other than Harry, and decided to take the lout down a notch.

'Hardly fair to upset Potter after all. Poor boy needs all the help he can get! Plus he's rather tolerable these days, doing what he's told.'

Yes, to the noble scion of House Malfoy, this was a just and fair counter attack to show those slovenly, lazy, foolish, shortsighted, narrow minded, dirty Gryffindor's their place.

"Weasley's little crew might lose thirty points or more when I let Filch know to check after curfew tonight. Obviously, what else could a bunch of Grffindor's be doing in there but… mischief."

Gregory and Vincent dutifully chuckled, but the blonde frowned a little when neither Harry, nor Tracey looked up from their work. Potter in particular seemed to be redoing a good bit of his charms notes - about half of them having drifted from the neat, tiny little print the halfblood wrote in into barely legible scribbles. Sniffing, the young wizard gave his friend a glare.

"You know, if you needed help you should have just asked. After all, I am a pureblood."

Grabbing his own notes, penned in an elegant, flowing script his mother had trained him in, Draco pushed them over.

"As we are all aware of, Malfoy." Tracey laid on the sarcasm heavily enough that even the young man's ego couldn't turn it into fawning praise. "And don't you have something better to do than badger the Gryffindors? We're supposed to be cunning, not sadistic."

Genuinely confused, the blonde wizard almost didn't know what to say.

"But Tracey, he's a blood traitor!"

Looking up from her homework, the witch chose to stow her quill in a half empty inkpot and rub the bridge of her nose. This got a slight smudge of ink on said nose, but she didn't notice and the wizard was far too stunned to comment on such an embarrassing faux pas.

"Yes, Malfoy, we are aware. Now, did you get the list of the Goblin Treaty of Northhampshire?"

"Oh, of course." Scrabbling through his own bag, Draco quickly pulled out the sheets of parchment requested. "Here you go."

"Thank you." Tracey took them and slid over her own notes on the subject - a trade, nothing in Slytherin was free. But they both knew his were better. Itemized, indexed, with each line perfectly straight, each detail boiled down to the relevant fact, and all in a script that was as smooth as it was discrete. A nobleman's hand if Malfoy said so himself… and he did, as Davis would quite happily remind him. "Now if only we could keep your brain and get rid of your mouth."

Harrumphing, he considered pulling his own notes back. But, when seeing Harry was actually rather desperately doing his best to clean up his own mistakes he decided that noblesse oblige would require him to help his poor, needy friends.

"So, Draco, are we going to duel Weasley? I assume he'll have a second too, or did you forget them? Gemma and Mrs. Hyppolyta both went over the rules for those."

Harry's question brought Malfoy up short.

"No, no, didn't you hear me? I'm going to trick him into getting caught by Filch."

That answer drew a frown from the other wizard.

"But isn't that dishonorable? Or even cowardly?"

Slightly offended, the young man attempted to adopt his father's look when dealing with ministry officials that didn't understand who the real power in their world was.

"Hardly. It's clever."

His response got a laugh from Tracey who, now finished with his notes, slid them back over.

"No, no. Harry's right. Are you too afraid to face a 'Gryffindor blood traitor' in honorable combat?"

Giving up the attempt, he just glared at his friends.

"You know I'm not. But I'm not looking to lose house points."

Really, what was the point of goading the red head if he couldn't get him into trouble? Sometimes Draco struggled to understand how Potter, being so enraptured by the teachings of that muscle headed lady, managed to convince the Sorting Hat to drop him in Slytherin. He didn't seem to have a single cunning bone in his body!

Never mind Tracey, who acted like she was above the time honored tradition of letting the Gryffindor's know they were beneath their House. He could barely convince Pansy and the knuckle heads to join in on the fun these days.

It was frustrating, to say the least.

In fact, they sometimes acted like he was a bit of a wanker. But Harry would always smile, nod, and clap him on the back. Tracey would give him a pitying look and link her arms with his and Harry's. And then she'd drag them off to dinner or the Library or the Quidditch pitch - anywhere away from Gemma.

Their prefect had taken a special liking to assigning large quantities of additional work whenever she thought the first years had too much time on their hands.

Model student or not, Draco still had his limits.

"You were just looking for an excuse to get into trouble after that tiff with Granger."

Tracey's waspish tongue was as sharp as ever. She was ever fond of poking him when he was in a rotten mood and the blond would very much like to ignore it. Only he had to protect the honor of House Malfoy.

"It wasn't a tiff. Granger is just insufferable."

Potter, the traitor, just shrugged.

"She's smart."

He sneered. Something he'd picked up from their head of house.

"She's a know it all and wants to rub our faces in how much better she is than us!"

Tracey smirked. It was an ugly, too-sweet kind of smile that reminded him of his mother's whenever she was dealing with guests.

"Only you get to do that, right?"

Ye-

"No, It's not like that! You know her type. They always come to Hogwarts thinking they know everything about magic and how we do things. Then they start questioning and asking stupid questions before telling us we should do things differently. Even though they should be listening to us."

From the corner of his eye, he could spot Potter sighing, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Draco."

He rounded on Davis, who called his name from the other side of their group.

"What?"

"Hate to break up your impression of your father, but I've already had that boring speech twice this week and I'll scribble a mustache on your face if you make me sit through it a third time."

Why, the little-

"It's kinda repetitive, yeah." Potter piped up.

He'd let them know that his father happened to know exactly what he was talking about when it came to these… muggle invaders! Their weird inventions and outlandish ideas. They should be thankful that he was here to warn them about how dangerous they were.

"Stop yawning, Potter! This is important!"

The green eyed menace shrugged.

"If you feel that strongly about that, then you should go out there and say it to their faces. Weasley, Hermione, whomever. Mrs. Hippolyta always says that it's better to get into fights when you want to than when other people do. Just go back there, say what you wanna say, Weasley says what he wants to say and you two can throw some tickling charms at each other. Problem solved."

Draco was starting to feel a migraine.

Because of course the student of a musclehead would turn out to be a musclehead.

What else was he expecting?

"You can't expect me to risk points just to get into a fight."

"I mean, didn't you challenge him? He totally seemed up for it, so if he shows up and you don't then he gets to call you a coward. So yeah, go for it. If someone catches you, at least you got to do something fun."

Unsure what he actually ought to do, his father had never prepared him for this situation, the young man thought about what his godfather might do - after all, his mother would have tanned his hide for this prank. And it occurred to him that Uncle Severus was, in fact, a master of the dark arts. And his own father had been a duelist himself in his early days. In fact, the more that Draco thought about it, the more he figured that a youthful indiscretion or two might not be so bad.

In fact, there was a chance to embarrass Weasley, using that knock-back jinx he'd picked up from a third year, escape before Filch's arrival, and claim twice the victory!

All he'd have to do is reach out and grab it.

"Very well, Potter, Davis, I'll show both how right I am. But Harry, you're my second! Gregory and Vincent were loyal, so they get to have a full night's sleep!"

Harry Potter

"See, I told you it was a bad idea to show up!"

Harry rolled his eyes at the blonde's whining.

"It was your idea, remember?"

"The duel was! Not showing up! Why did I let you rope me into this?!"

Really, Harry didn't know why Malfoy thought it was so weird. He challenged Ron to a duel and then thought he could get out of it? At least when Harry got into trouble, he did it because he wasn't planning to. This time was different though, because his… kinda friend decided getting someone else in trouble would be worth a laugh.

So of course he dragged him into it.

Real men kept their words.

It earned him an earful from Gemma and the promise of… intensified training from Mrs. Hippolyta, but he just couldn't let a friend of his turn himself into a sniveling coward. It would make him think he can get away from doing things if he were smart. And that, in his humble opinion, was lazy.

For a boy like him, who wanted to be known and loved for who he was, well, it felt only right to show Malfoy the right way to do things.

So the half blood made sure his friend was dragged out of bed and to the trophy room.

In the middle of the night, because of course the two of them couldn't have settled on a better time for everyone else. What was it with people and trying to be sneaky? If you really want to do something, then just do it and handle whatever happens next. Like punching a troll, or saving another student.

"I knew I could smell a bunch of slimy snakes!"

Standing there, shivering, because the two Gryffindor's hadn't bothered to wear their heavy cloaks, was Ronald Weasley and Seamus Finneagan. Weasley, who already had his wand out, looked half frozen and half on edge.

"Blood traitor!"

Draco, as original as ever, repeated his father again.

"Hullo! I brought extra socks." Harry waved at the other boys and opened up the small knapsack Gemma had given him. "Draco didn't even want to change out of his night clothes at first, but the prefect said we ought to bundle up."

"You told a prefect!?"

Ron squawked in protest, somewhat waving his wand about as he did so. Considering saying something, the black haired Slytherin just shrugged.

"Of course. That way if we get caught, she can cover for us to the professors."

"Actually Ron, why didn't we just tell your brother?" Seamus had turned to his friend and gave the young man a gentle poke in the ribs. "Wouldn't he have just been waiting for those two, busted them, and taken at least twenty points?"

Blushing as red as his hair, the young man grumbled a bit.

"I actually told Fred and George and told them to tell Percy if we didn't show back up. They pointed that out then, but I told them to mind their own business."

Draco, frowning, looked around.

"And are those two trouble makers just waiting to jump in? Curse Potter and I when we aren't looking! I know your sort and how you work."

Leaving his classmates to spew insults at each other, Harry walked over to seamus and gave the boy one of the extra pairs of socks.

"Brilliant of your prefect, Harry. Didn't think a snake would worry about a gryff."

He could only smile at that.

"Gemma's the best. In my opinion, she's the best prefect of the whole school!"

Snorting, the Irishman gave him a knowing look.

"Sounds like you've got a crush, Potter!" Giggling, the other first year elbowed Harry and the half blood found himself suddenly very interested in his shoes all of a sudden. "Don't be like that man. Me mum had a talk with me not all that long ago about my, well, she's not a babysitter, but, um…."

"A nice girl that looked after you a bit?"

"Aye." Nodding sagaciously, the other boy took the out in stride. "That's a good way of putting it. But, as I was saying, she was a, ah, charming lass as me dad would say, and I was…."

"Charmed?" Harry supplied.

"That." Seamus agreed. "So don't worry too much, you'll get over it soon enough."

Parting, the two boys walked back over to the other half of the group where Ron and Draco had both gone red in the face as they tried to intimidate the other. Though, if Harry was asked, he'd say that poor Ronald actually looked a bit too much like Uncle Vernon while Malfoy, unfortunately, merely looked constipated.

Far less scary than Mrs. Hippolyta.

"Here Ron." Holding out the second pair of socks, he trotted back to his friend's side once the freezing Gryffindor started to add the extra layer.

"Done fraternizing with the enemy, Potter?"

Smiling brightly at his kind of sorta friend, the demigod nodded.

"Yeah! Seamus isn't so bad for an idiotic, tactless, foolish, useless, layabout Gryffindor."

The glare Malfoy gave him in return made Harry giggle, but Ron was finished getting ready, so the two purebloods stood roughly ten paces apart, a very rough ten paces indeed, brought their wands up, and waited.

"Oh, we don't have a referee." Suddenly realizing that they, in fact, lacked the most important part of a duel, that being someone to start it, Harry waved at Seamus. "On three?"

Waving back, the Irishman agreed.

"Sounds good!"

Counting together, the two young men couldn't help but smirk at how nervous their respective friends had gotten.

"One."

"Two."

There was a pause, but just as Draco opened his mouth, both Harry and Seamus called out.

"Three!"

Several things happened in succession.

"Eat slugs Malfoy!" Stepping forwards, Ronald jabbed his wand forwards and a yellow-green light began to form at the tip. However, somewhat critically, he had also not tied his shoes back properly. Stepping on a loose string, he just as quickly began to fall forwards.

Malfoy, acting more on instinct, turned away from where he was about to chastise Harry and towards where he thought Ron was.

"Flipendo!"

His shot flew clear over the other boy who, open hitting the ground, fired his own spell off in the vague direction of the side of the room.

Ron's spell nearly clipped Harry, who hit the ground with a speed Mrs. Hippolyta would have said "needed more practice", and Draco's spell flew straight into a trophy case and sent shards of glass flying. Neither of the duelists noticed this and had attempted to curse each other again.

Knowing his was at a disadvantage on the ground, the Weasley began rolling around and letting off a tickling jinx, not a bad choice since the small silver light moved faster than a bullet, while Draco attempted, and failed, a more complex curse of some sort.

"Rictumsempra!"

"Mimblewim- hehehe mimble-hahahahaha!"

Laughing uncontrollably, and unable to cast himself, Malfoy acted with a degree of cunning that Harry respected.

"Ta-haha take this blood traitor hahahaha!"

Visibly gathering power at his wand tip, the Slytherin unleashed a sudden, violent blast of light. It wasn't a lumos charm, but more like intentional accidental magic.

That meant it was so painfully bright that Malfoy cried out, along with Seamus and Ron, while Harry screwed his eyes shut and covered them with his hands - still huddled on the ground where he was.

When it had died down, and Ron's tickling charm too, it left the pair of first years mostly blind, flailing about, and rolling around on the ground together. The son of Heracles assumed Malfoy had tripped over the other boy and now the slightly bigger Weasley figured his best shot was to grapple with his foe. A respectable choice, in the demigod's opinion, but it was clear that both of his fellow firsties needed more practice.

'They really didn't need to break the trophy case though.'

Because first years don't know much of anything when it comes to curses and spells that, you know, actually do stuff, his friend and the redhead ended up brawling all over the room. Harry and Seamus were "forced" to watch from the sidelines as their friends made a mess of themselves. But that was ok too.

Poking around the trophy case that'd been broken, the young demigod found his scar started to itch.

And specifically in the way he'd been told was not-good.

The kind of not-good that probably meant something to do with Voldemort was near.

So, not paying attention to anything else going on, he started poking around the broken case until he touched a cup… a cup that burned him so intensely his fingers were scalded.

Swallowing a yelp, Harry jerked his hand back, and found that his fingers were already blistering and his scar seemed to be on fire!

"Well, well, well."

Spinning around, Argus Filch loomed large behind him, leering as he raised a lantern high.

"This time, Potter, the Headmaster won't be able to help you!"

Reaching past him, he snatched up the artifact Harry had just been trying to touch, before the half blood could stop him, and then stuffed the cup under his coat - just so he could take the confused boy by the scruff of his neck.

And before Harry knew it, he was standing in front of a rather pleasant looking gargoyle still as confused as he was just moments ago.