Protection

The next week was intense. Everyone suspected everyone else of perpetrating the attack on the school's chickens and egg supply, and while most people suspected the Slytherins as conjured snakes had done the killing, Tracey informed Harry that everyone in their house was looking for someone who had soiled their name. She told them that Marcus Flint was particularly on the hunt for whoever had ruined his favorite part of breakfast.

When he heard the news, Brandt sent Harry a small paper that contained just a question mark that turned into a snake for just a moment before the entire paper vanished. Harry responded with "No" in his letter back.

The only bright spot in the week was on Thursday when Madison sent Harry a package that turned out to be a blanket made from the Kesaran-pasaran fur. Back at the dorm, most of the students took turns with the cuddle blanket, though Patricia, Cedric, and Lee all said that it felt weird to have a blanket that rubbed on them rather than the other way around. When he showed the idea to Penny, she had the same reaction, though Hermione loved it. Just out of curiosity, Penny analyzed the effect using the diagnostic spell and added it to her potential research on how to duplicate it. She mentioned that the effect from the kesaran-pasaran fur seemed simpler than the aurora wool and that working that one out might lead to a better understanding of how Harry's magic worked.

When Saturday came around, Harry, Lyra, and Whispers went to an eggless breakfast in the Great Hall. Sitting up at the staff table when they arrived were Arcturus, Brandt, and a tall woman with dark blonde hair, and a complexion slightly lighter than Blaise's. All four of them were in the middle of a serious conversation and looked toward the two children as they entered the room. Harry and Lyra froze as they were being looked at, but then Dumbledore turned back to the others and continued the conversation.

Nervously, they started their breakfasts, with Whispers piling up some breakfast salmon on his plate and ignoring the people at the staff table. Towards the end of the meal, Whispers's eyes glowed blue then all three of them looked up to see Dumbledore approaching with the others. The headmaster didn't stop at them and just continued to walk past them and out of the room. Arcturus, Brandt, and the woman stopped at their spot, but before they could say anything, Whispers stood up as tall as he could on the bench and placed his hands on the woman's shoulders with his eyes glowing.

She looked startled but then returned his gaze, holding the stare for nearly three minutes as everyone in the hall observed the interaction in silence. When the woman finally blinked, she shook her head and shivered.

"That was intense," she bent her neck back and forth, then rolled her shoulders. "I think we should continue this conversation in private."

Brandt motioned with his head out of the room, and Harry, Lyra, and Whispers followed the group out, and to the classroom, they had used to meet Narcissa in, with Arcturus putting up a locking charm and various privacy spells after they were inside.

Brandt introduced the woman, "Harry, Lyra, Whispers; this is Símone Ides. She will be tutoring you in basic Occlumency. Well, not you Whispers," he added while looking at the demiguise.

Whispers just shrugged and tried to start another staring contest with the woman, but she stepped back and turned to the children, "Mr. Potter, Miss Black, you may call me Símone. I have no need for titles, and it would be best for the two of you to be comfortable around me to better learn the craft of defending your minds."

"Did you understand what Whispers was doing?" Lyra asked the woman.

"It felt like a mental sparring match. Every second felt like he was going to attack me, so I just focused on everything I would do to defend myself. He started slowly, but eventually, the feelings of attack got too fast for me to respond, and then I couldn't keep holding his gaze."

"That's pretty much it," Lyra told her. "I think he was expecting you to try to attack him back, or at least think about it."

"Interesting," she mused, then approached Whispers and laid her hands on his shoulders as she stared into his eyes, and his started to glow blue. This time, she barely lasted a minute before backing off and started breathing heavily.

"I don't think he was being serious the first time," she said. "That time, it felt like I was fighting with a ten-headed hydra."

Whispers just sat back down and relaxed, appearing smug, like he was resting after a victorious battle.

"It's a dominance ritual," Harry explained. "The Hidden do it with each other. The longest we've seen was about twenty-five minutes between the last leader of Whispers's village and Dougal, Newt Scamander's friend."

"Well, that will make it easier for me to assign homework," Símone said. "Once you're aware of your own minds, I believe that you'll be able to strengthen them by engaging in this behavior with him. If I have difficulty lasting a few minutes, I imagine it will be quite a long time before you're able to beat him, if ever."

"Excellent," Arcturus said with a smile. "So both of you have been made aware of Legilimency and Occlumency as opposing forces in mental magics. Legilimency makes the keeping of secrets to be quite difficult when there is the possibility of someone just taking them from your mind. Símone will help you both with learning how to protect your minds from external and internal influences. Brandt and I will observe for your initial lesson, then Símone will return once a week to check on your progress and instruct you on additional techniques."

The two Blacks retreated to the corner of the room as Símone sat down with Harry and Lyra, "I am going to start by seeing if either of you can detect a mental intrusion. Harry, I've been told that you can, but I would like to see for myself."

"What do you need to do?" he asked.

She pulled out a children's coloring book and flipped it open to a random page. On it was outlines of a giraffe and a hippo, "I want you to imagine each of these animals as a specific color, preferably not what they would be in real life. I am going to look into your head and try to pull the color out, ok?"

Harry looked at the animals and thought green would be good for the hippo, while red and white would work for the giraffe. He nodded to Símone.

"A lot of people can use legilimency without a wand, all they need is eye contact. However, for our first few lessons, I will use my wand so you know when I am starting. Try to think of anything else except for the colors of the animals you chose." She drew her wand, "Here it comes, Legilimens!"

Harry felt something akin to her wand blowing air onto his face, and he immediately thought of an animal, so he imagined a dragon. Then he thought, "A dragon is too big… why not something smaller and less magical." So changing from that, he thought of a mouse. Then again came another thought, "Bigger, with a large nose, and lives in the water." Like a hippo? "Yes, exactly like a hippo. What would a weird color for that be?" Green.

Harry sat up quickly and looked around, Símone smiled at him, and said, "Your hippo was green. Did you feel me in your head?"

"I felt the wind on my face, and then I started asking myself questions about animals."

"That wasn't you asking the questions," she told him. "That was me. You'll eventually learn how to differentiate your voice from an intruder in your head. Let's do it again with the giraffe." She raised her wand again, "Legilimens!"

Harry felt the wind in his face again as he focused his mind on something that wasn't even an animal, just a rock. He began thinking again, "As long as I think about this rock, I don't have to think about the giraffe." Yes, thinking about the rock meant that I don't need to think about any animal. "If I can hide the colors of the giraffe inside of the rock, Símone can't find them there."

Suddenly there was the sound of a hammer chiseling away at the rock until it split open and revealed a swirling red and white center. Harry's head jerked upwards and to the side. The rock was gone and he was staring at Símone again who just smiled and said, "Red and White."

"It really seemed like I was thinking those things," Harry said while trying to focus internally on what just happened.

"Don't worry too much about what just happened," she told him. "You could feel that I had cast the spell, which is more than most people can do. I'm going to do the same thing with your sister now." She turned to Lyra, flipped through the book again, and found a gorilla in front of a palm tree. "Think about colors for the tree leaves and the gorilla, and let me know when you're ready."

Lyra focused on the pictures before looking up at their new tutor and nodding. She pointed her wand straight into Lyra's eyes and cast the spell. Three seconds later, she raised her wand and said, "Your palm tree is black."

"I didn't feel anything. I just asked myself what color the tree was, and said it was black." Lyra frowned.

"Don't worry, this is your first time. Try to think about it this way. If you are trying to hide something that you already know, why do you need to answer any questions about it? Why would you ask yourself questions that you already know the answer to?"

Lyra pursed her lips and tried to focus her mind, staring at the coloring book, then looked back at Símone and nodded. The wand was pointed back at her eyes and the spell was cast. This time took nearly five seconds before the wand was raised and she just smiled, "You refused to pick a color, didn't you?"

Lyra just stuck out her tongue in response.

She just smiled back and pulled a paper and quill from her pocket, "Harry, I'm giving you a quick assignment while I work with your sister. I want you to write down words that you associate with each of the emotions on this paper. I don't need to know the related memories themselves, I just want you to write down words you associate with strong emotions. While you do that, I'm going to repeatedly scan Lyra's mind until she can detect that I'm in there."

Harry took the paper as Símone turned to Lyra and put her hand under his sister's chin, raising her eyes to his, "I'm not going to use an incantation this time. I'm just going to look inside, then jump back out. I'm going to do that over and over until you tell me that you've felt something. Harry said it felt like wind on his face, but it could be a bit of warmth, a pinching sensation, flashing lights, anything at all. Just let me know when it happens."

Harry looked down at the paper as Lyra stared into Símone's eyes. There was a short list of emotions, so he started to fill them all out.

Anger - Vincent

Fear - Tree

Disgust - Pinocchio

Happiness - Lyra

Sadness - Privet

Surprise - Bugs

Contempt - Malfoy

When he was done, their new tutor was still staring into Lyra's eyes, but neither of them was blinking. So he looked over to Whispers, who was lounging across two chairs and reached over to flick his toes. Before he could even get close, his little brother jumped up and growled, but Harry just smiled. He reached up to place his hands on Whispers's shoulders, and the Hidden looked pleasantly surprised and returned the gesture and his eyes started to glow blue.

Harry tried to focus on trying to feel the same intrusion he did when Símone's spell washed over him, but he didn't feel anything… at first. After a second of staring into his blue eyes, he felt like someone was about to slap the side of his head. Reacting quickly, he let go of his brother's shoulders and jumped backward. Whispers gave him a creepy grin and motioned for Harry to come back. Hesitantly, Harry sat back down and put his hands on Whispers's shoulders.

This time, when he felt the slap coming, he just thought hard about blocking it until the feeling went away. Then it came back on the other side, but it felt like he had actually been hit which broke his eye contact. When he looked up, Whispers still hadn't moved but was smiling again.

He continued the exercise for another ten minutes until he could block two attacks in succession, before Lyra called out, "I felt that!"

"What did it feel like?" Símone asked.

"Like a bubble around my head that someone was leaning on until they pushed through…" She adopted a look of worry, "Like that time with my father, except more gentle."

Harry remembered what she was talking about, and said, "Don't worry, we fought him off, you can fight this too."

"Let's try it again," Símone told Lyra. "I want you to be able to feel it every time."

They went back to working on it for another ten minutes until Lyra was able to feel every moment of intrusion. Símone then pulled another sheet, like Harry's, out of her bag and gave it to Lyra, "Fill this out like Harry, and then we'll get started on the next lesson."

Lyra filled out hers with

Anger - Privet

Fear - Tree

Disgust - Draco

Happiness - Mangos

Sadness - Manor

Surprise - Bugs

Contempt - Mother

Harry and Lyra exchanged lists and noticed the similarities between them. Each of them knew what the others meant with their memories. In the back of the room, Arcturus and Brandt started reading through a ledger behind a privacy ward. When Brandt pulled out a thermos of coffee and poured a cup, Whispers joined them and asked for some as well.

Símone started her next lesson at that time, "Occlumency is the magic of protecting your mind, from both external and internal threats. Oftentimes, your feelings and emotions can hurt you and cause you problems. That doesn't mean you shouldn't feel them, just that you need to learn to not let them affect you when you don't want them to. Sometimes it's good to hide how you truly feel about something or make it so someone can't read a reaction you have to what they say. Many who learn this technique will often stop after the first lesson where you will just learn to filter out all emotions and develop a mask of no reactions."

Harry and Lyra thought about what she was saying before coming to the same conclusion and looked at each other, saying, "Daphne!"

"You have a friend that employs this tactic?" They both nodded. "You will learn how to do that as well, but I will have you take it a step further. After you have developed your mask, you will learn that it doesn't have to make you devoid of emotions. You need to learn how to put on a mask of happiness when you are feeling anger or a mask of interest when you are feeling bored. If you think someone is lying to you, you should be able to look into their eyes and show them that you trust them with your life instead of just a blank face like your friend Daphne does."

That made a lot more sense than what Daphne was always doing, but it also played into her legend of being the 'Ice Queen.' After that nickname got started up, she enjoyed playing herself as a cold and emotionless person, just staring back at people with dead eyes and no smile, even when they were trying to surprise her or make her laugh.

"So what do we need to do?" Lyra asked.

"From your lists of emotions, I want you to alternate concentrating on each one. Focus on them until it feels like it is going to burst out of you, the same way as when I attempted to read your thoughts. Feel the pressure of the emotion in your mind. When you can feel it traveling through your mind, you'll be able to feel it moving in a specific direction. Sometimes you'll need to stop and focus on something else for a while before you start again. Try to feel where it starts and where it leads to. The barrier you feel around your mind is something you'll need to focus on stopping these emotions from traversing your body and brain."

Trying to imagine his emotions as a living thing, moving around his brain, was making his head hurt. He told her as much.

"Don't worry, this is a very esoteric branch of magic. It's hard to conceptualize at first, but you will get it eventually. It's like learning to see in the dark or trying to imagine breathing underwater. Your brain will tell you it is impossible… until you do it. You just need to practice, and practice, and practice."

"How long do you think it will take?" Lyra asked.

"Some people can never get it, their minds just can't understand it." Lyra felt a little disappointed that she might never figure this out and looked down at her shoes.

Brandt broke her out of her thoughts, saying, "Lyra, light your hair on fire."

She looked confused for a moment, as he continued to glare at her, waiting for her to respond. Then focusing on her magic, her entire head exploded into flames, flames raging along with the braids in her hair.

"Lyra, use your earring, the black one," he told her next.

While the flames were still raging in her hair, she focused on the black fur of The Giver, hanging from her ear. Brandt watched as her form started to blur and she moved to a different part of the classroom every time he blinked.

"That's good, that's enough," he told her as he looked around, trying to track her movements. She slowed down and her hair went out, then moved back to the desk she was sitting at before and sat back down. "Why did I have you do that?" he asked. "You can do incredible things that no one else can do. If you tell yourself that something is impossible, it probably will be. This isn't something like being a metamorphmagus where you need to be born with it. This is something you learn, like Transfiguration. Stick with this and you'll do just fine. It might take a while, but you'll get it."

Lyra smiled at his praise.

Símone added, "The Steward is correct. You just need to train your mind as you would train your magic or your body. It just requires dedication and patience. When I said that some people can never get it, those are people without patience and dedication, they don't lack the ability to learn Occlumency specifically, but they aren't able to learn complicated things. Nearly all witches and wizards who learn this discipline will go on to be better than they were before in all fields of magic and life."

"There's just so much to learn," Harry added. "We have so many things already that we need to do."

"There's no deadline to this," Brandt told Harry. "You don't need to do this by the end of the school year or the beginning of the next one. Occlumency will help you in many ways if you learn it quickly, but there are no grades, no exams, just your progress."

That made Harry feel a bit better, but he would like to learn it quickly if it could help in all of his other pursuits.

"Figuring out your emotions will need to be your homework, you'll also need a palette cleanser. All of the emotions you wrote down are strong emotions, things that get your blood boiling in either a good way or a bad one. Can either of you think of something that just makes you feel completely relaxed like you have no cares in the entire world?"

As they started to think about various memories, it was Brandt who reminded them of what they needed, "I'm pretty sure the best one will be the hot springs. I have a few palette cleansers of my own, but I'm adding your hot springs to my list."

Harry and Lyra both agreed to that. Soaking in the springs on the island was the best way to reset their brains and decompress anything they were feeling. It was also reinvigorating in a way they couldn't quite describe, but that was primarily a recovery thing, not to give them a boost.

"Good," Símone said. "So when you concentrate on the memories from your list, take a break between each one and take your mind back to your hot springs to reset your brain before tackling another emotion, and tracing the route it takes through your mind and body."

Arcturus joined the conversation, "We're going to need to stop for lunch and the children have another tutor afterward that we need to take them out to the village to meet. Do you have anything else to cover with them?"

Símone shook her head, "I would like to spend the afternoon in the castle with Whispers. One of the most difficult things about learning Occlumency is finding someone to practice with to strengthen your mental shielding. If a demiguise can substitute for a teacher in that regard, it could allow for many more people to learn the craft with the same amount of human tutors."

Arcturus looked towards Lyra, "Is it alright if Mrs. Ides spends the afternoon with Whispers?"

Lyra looked to her little brother and exchanged a series of signs with him, occasionally pointing to Símone and their eyes. At the end of the conversation, Whispers just raised his hands in the internationally accepted sign of, [Whatever].

"He'll be in the common room after lunch," Lyra told their tutor. "You might need to climb a tree to spend time with him."

"I will talk with Mr. Scamander about giving her access," Brandt told the group, then left the room. Arcturus gestured to the rest to head on out as well.

"What are we doing after lunch?" Harry asked Arcturus on the way to the Great Hall.

"I've found you a tutor for your knife training," he said with a small smile. "Eat well, you'll need the energy, and then pack your knives in your pouches and meet me down by the gates to the school."

Harry and Lyra perked up at that and ran the rest of the way to get started on eating.

The snow had started to melt a bit, but that just made all the surfaces outside the castle icy, instead of packed with snow. Every bit of the grounds outside of the school was like a giant mirror that reflected the sun whenever it peaked through the clouds. Luckily for Harry and Lyra, they were magical and could rise above the slippery paths. With their knives stored in their pouches, they took a flight on their brooms down and over the still-frozen lake, where a few students were skating near the edge, then past Hagrid's hut and back towards the Quidditch stadium where the main gate was located.

They both landed in front of Arcturus and Brandt who escorted them out of the main gate, without a word. After a short walk, they entered the village of Hogsmeade. It was a relatively small village, with one long main street that had numerous shops that were more obviously magical than even Diagon Alley. Being the only all-wizard village in the country, they went all out on putting as much magic in it as possible that would normally be hidden or put under disguises or repelling wards in towns mixed with muggles.

However, they walked past the main street and through the residential area until they got to a small building on the outskirts that looked like a warehouse of some kind. Arcturus and Brandt just walked in the front door, without knocking, and Harry and Lyra followed them in. The inside showed them they were in some kind of blacksmith's shop. Metal instruments covered the tables along with various tools and weapons at various stages of development. They could see marks on the floor to show that everything in the room had been pushed towards the walls recently to leave a large empty area in the middle of the structure.

Arcturus called out, "Ransom! Get out here!"

A door in the back opened and a strong man slightly shorter than Brandt walked out. He was bald but had a well-trimmed, brown beard that made his chin look square. He wore an apron which he tossed to the side as he crossed the room. His arms were muscular without being bulgy, similar to how Tonks had shifted her arms when Harry was at the funfair.

He looked at the two of them and said, "You want me to train Harry Potter how to use a knife?"

"And my niece, Lyra," Arcturus responded.

He stepped closer to Harry, and said, "What would Dumbledore's golden boy need a knife for? I doubt he'll ever need to plunge a blade into someone's heart."

Harry was a bit annoyed, but having just come from their lesson about isolating emotions, he instead tried to figure out where the feeling started and where it went. He was less annoyed with the man's inclination to treat him like a child, and more about associating him with the headmaster. He also didn't want to give away any of his history to this man he had just met, so he quashed down his annoyance and just stared back at the man. He felt Lyra getting annoyed as well on his behalf, and hoped that his lack of action would calm her down.

The man seemed to have expected a reaction, and a bit of surprise showed on his face, but he doubled down and asked, "Have you ever seen someone else's blood? Have you had to wash it off your hands? Do you still see it staining your hands days after you've scrubbed it all away?"

The last question confused him, so he responded, "Why would I see it after it was gone? I mean, I can always save it for later if I need it for something. Blood doesn't stain your hands, it just washes away." He looked over to Lyra to see if she understood the man's line of questioning, but she looked just as confused and shrugged back.

Arcturus and Brandt were hanging back as the man continued to question Harry, "You have hurt people before, made them bleed, and collected their blood. But not with a knife or you wouldn't be coming to me now for training." He turned to Lyra, "What about you? What have you killed?"

"Mostly snakes," she said indifferently. "Sometimes a rodent if I could catch it… and fish, plenty of fish."

"Do you think you could stab a person?" He asked her.

"If I needed to," Lyra responded, a bit annoyed at his questions.

He pulled a knife out of thin air, it was small, like one that you would use to cut an apple, and handed it to her handle first. A bit hesitant, she took it from him, then he kneeled in front of her.

"Stab me in the leg," he instructed her, pointing to his thigh.

"Wait for just a second," Brandt jumped in, "Don't you think this is a bit much for the first lesson?"

"I want to see what they are capable of," Ransom bit back. "I'm not going to waste my time with someone who's going to break down in tears at the sight of blood."

"Go ahead, Lyra," Harry told her. "He is asking you to do it."

Lyra fixed the knife in a grip for skinning snakes and plunged the small knife into the man's leg. Surprisingly he did not react as the blade penetrated his skin, and a bit of blood spurted out. Everyone except Arcturus looked very confused at the lack of his reaction. However, as they were looking confused, there was an eerie scream that came from the room in the back.

"Ignore that for now," he told them as if they could ignore such a thing, then removed the knife from his leg and wiped it on his pants before sticking it into his belt and standing back up. "I think this will be fun," he said with a sinister smile. "I haven't instructed anyone underage in quite a long time. Are both of you wearing something under those robes? You'll need to move around for my lessons."

If it wasn't winter, there would be a problem. At the beginning of the school year, they both enjoyed the freedom of wearing almost nothing under their school robes as they were used to wearing very little, or nothing, on the island. However, during the cold winters of Scotland, they did wear quite a few layers and removed their robes to show just pants and long shirts underneath.

"Did you bring any knives with you to train with?" their gruff tutor asked.

They each carefully removed the two bone-handled knives from their pouches, in their sheaths, and passed them to the man.

He removed them both and looked at them before saying, "These are quite well-made knives. Where did you get them?"

Brandt responded, "There was a magical animal attack that killed their owners. These were recovered later."

"Give me a minute," he said, then took the knives into the back room. From the other side, they heard him yell, "Hey Pickle! Make me blunt training copies of these knives."

A voice responded to him, with a bit of a growl that echoed, "My name is Pik'kal, asshole. Give them to me."

Ransom exited the room carrying several small wooden rods and tossed one to each of the children, which they caught out of the air with ease.

"You're going to learn basic movements now, then you're going to learn how to block and dodge, then you're going to learn how to cut, stab, and throw."

Both Harry and Lyra were curious about the voice in the other room, but if he wasn't going to say anything, they weren't going to ask. So they just waited for his next instruction.

Over the next two hours, he had them run through various drills to show them both specific stances and ways to hold knives to protect themselves from various attacks in the proper ways. He had them hold their positions for long periods while he would get in close and shift their elbows or feet slightly in different directions to correct what they were doing. During the second hour, he used one of the wooden rods he was carrying to strike at theirs while they held a position. It was tough work, but they were both strong for their age and pushed through the difficult work.

Nearly two hours passed and they heard the voice from the other room growl again, "I am finished with the knives."

Ransom turned around and left them there. Harry and Lyra both looked to Brandt for an explanation, but he just shrugged. Arcturus looked like he knew something, but also didn't look like he was going to say anything either. After a minute, their tutor came back into the room carrying their knives and what looked like exact copies of each. He put one of each back in a sheath and tossed them toward the pack that Lyra had brought.

With the two copies in his hands, he told them, "Hold out your arms."

Obediently, they both held out their left arms. Almost as fast as The Giver could have done he slashed both of their arms with the new knives. They both jerked back instinctively, but after the blades had gone across their arms, they only to see that nothing was cut.

"These blades cannot cut," he told them. "They have enough of a point that they'll still penetrate someone if you push hard enough, but the same could be said about the handle of a spoon. If you wish to carry a knife, you may do so with these until I determine you're skilled enough to carry the real ones. For now, you need to run through your stances and positions every morning before breakfast."

They could see he expected some kind of disappointment from them for getting up early, but they were up at dawn each day anyway… except those days Harry was out late exacting revenge.

"I wouldn't have expected a rich girl, and Dumbledore's prince to be so disciplined," he added, seeing their compliance. Though at the headmaster's name, Harry's face tightened. "You don't like the man, do you?" He looked to Lyra, "And you're not what I think you are either. I think I'll enjoy getting to know both of you."

With that, he turned around and went into the back room, calling out, "Hey Pickle! Time to start making dinner!"

"It's Pik'kal you bloody prick!" the voice growled back, as the door shut behind Ransom.

Arcturus led them out of the warehouse. Once they were outside, Harry asked, "Is he never going to tell us what was in that back room?"

Arcturus led himself to chuckle a bit, "It's funny, I originally had intended on Pik'kal to be your tutor, but I never figured he would get himself shackled to a wizard. If that blacksmith ever decides to let you meet him, that will be his decision."

"Is that man, Ransom, better with knives than the one in the back?" Lyra asked.

"I assure you, Lyra," Arcturus told her, "he has at least the exact skill with both knives and teaching as Pik'kal does."

Before they re-entered the grounds of the school, Brandt gave sheaths to Harry and Lyra for their blunt knives, saying, "Just because they are blunt, doesn't mean you shouldn't treat them like the real thing, all the time. Do not let your friends play with them, do not wave them around. I have informed your professors that you will be carrying them on your belts around the school and that you are training with them. If there are any infractions, we will send them back to the island and you may use them only there. Do you understand?"

Harry was a bit annoyed at his tone, but it was good that Brandt understood that this was his property. If he ended up only being able to have his knife on the island, so be it. If he needed a weapon, he had his staff and his wand. The knife would be more useful back home than at school anyways.