He stopped into Elena's office when he returned and detailed his outing. She laughed at his visit to Harrods, and after he was done she asked him to close his eyes and pull back into his mindscape. A few moments later she was knocking at the front gates and he opened them to her presence, the goblins saluting her as she passed. Meeting her at the front door to the castle Harry waved and when she was close enough she reached out and put a hand on either side of his head. With such a connection she was able to race through the layout of the castle, searching every nook and cranny for any hint of repressed emotion.
She found a bit of repressed desire, focused mainly on the girl he had met that afternoon, but some also representing fellow Hogwarts classmates. On the Quidditch pitch she found suppressed ambition, represented by a ghostly Harry barely flying higher than the goal posts. Before Harry could object she sent a surge of reassurance down that tendril in his mind, freeing the player to soar ever higher. Eventually she did find where he was hiding his guilt, a sullen, dank corner far out of reach. She coaxed this Harry to come forth and be seen, but it refused and clung to the shadows with need. Linking herself with the tendril she saw images of a tall sandy-haired boy she somehow knew as Cedric Diggory, then a cycle of images depicting the injuries his friends had endured during their foray into the Ministry. Finally, on an endless loop, she saw Sirius Black, a look of absolute astonishment on his face, falling through the veil in the heart of the Ministry. Try as she might she couldn't get the playback to stop until Harry, realizing she was stuck, pushed her out and back into her own body.
Tears streaked her face as she felt the grief of the young boy wash over her. She wiped them away deftly before collecting herself. "Harry you mustn't hold on to those feelings of guilt. The rational side of your brain knows that none of that was your fault, you couldn't have known about the port key, or that the ministry was a trap. You have great courage and you stand as a beacon of hope in these dark times. A lot is expected of you, but you mustn't let that weigh you down. Be sure in your decisions, do not falter, because whether you like it or not, the entire wizarding world is watching."
Harry scoffed, "Courageous my arse! I almost got my friends killed and I did get my godfather killed. More like bloody thick headed and reckless. Everyone expects me to be this courageous hero, but half the time I'm scared shitless that someone I love is going to die." Elena came around the desk, placing her hand on his, causing his eyes to meet hers. "Harry courage is being afraid and pushing forth anyway. There can be no courage unless you're scared." Harry stared into her gray eyes before nodding to himself and standing abruptly. "I'm going to go sort some of this out, thanks for talking with me. I'll be careful about my emotions." With that he walked to the door, but her voice stopped him, "Harry your courage is contagious, never forget that. It's not only your friends that look to you when things go bad." Harry nodded solemnly and let himself out.
Sleep didn't come easily to Harry that night, but when he finally succumbed he didn't end up having any remarkable dreams. He woke the next morning rested and curious as to what his lesson with Mark would entail. Like the day before he banged on Mark's door on his way to breakfast, earning him another glare when his friend eventually showed up for breakfast ten minutes later. "So what will our classes be like?" He asked after Mark had gotten himself settled with a tray of food. Mark finished chewing his bacon and said, "I wouldn't call it class per se, more of a recitation. All the stuff you cram into your brain on Monday with Jacob we'll go over in a more practical sense on Tuesdays." Harry grinned, excited for his first 'practical' lesson. He always learned better by doing, and he was interested to learn that lock-picking trick Mark had done earlier in the week. He patiently waited for Mark to finish eating before they made their way down to Room Two which looked like a martial arts training room. "What exactly will we be doing?" asked Harry, eying the mats on the floor with trepidation.
"Well, since I'm positive you'll want to learn it first, we're going to try getting translocation down. From what I've heard, it's a fair bit easier to learn than apparition, and since there is less room for error, we usually teach it to kids starting at around 13 or 14. Don't feel like a late bloomer, you didn't know you could do this before." Harry, who had been about to let shame wash over him nodded and gave Mark a determined look, "So what do I do first?" Mark went to a nearby cabinet and withdrew a silk blindfold and came back to Harry, tying it so Harry couldn't see a thing. "What you're going to do is you're going to build an image of where you want to be. The best place to start is just around the room, but how can you be sure there isn't an object in the way? That's where we psions have a step up over wizards. Did Jacob cover pinging with you?" Harry nodded, the pages of the book flashing in front of his vision, refreshing him on what Mark was asking him to do. "Okay so what I want you to do is ping me for surface thoughts about my surroundings, and using what you get I want you to build an image of the room and then I want you to concentrate on putting yourself in a different location in the room, avoiding the chairs and such I've been spreading around while I've been talking to you."
Rolling his eyes Harry sent out a mental ping, which first bounced off of, and then was absorbed by Mark's shield slightly before he sent information back to Harry. The whole thing was reminiscent of bats to Harry, but from what he was getting he could see the room exactly as it was; three chairs spread around the room and Mark making a slow circle around the perimeter of the room. Focusing on Mark's instructions he moved his position in his mental room to five feet in front of Mark, in his path. A ghost image of Harry showed in his mental image and he concentrated on moving the solid Harry to the ghost Harry. With just the right amount of pushing he pushed one onto the other and they became one. He didn't feel like he had moved; however Mark's footsteps had suddenly moved from his right side to directly in front of him. "Good going Harry! I knew you'd get it in one go. Take the blind fold off." Harry reached up and puled the silk down around his neck and looked around. He had indeed moved himself from one side of the room to the other, he grinned. "Brilliant." Mark nodded and began popping around the room, showing off. "It's really not that difficult, and since we can get live updates if there is someone to ping off of we have a severely decreased chance of splinching ourselves. I'm going to go up to the lounge, I think Simon and Coggy are up there, ping off of all three of us and come on up." With that he was gone.
Harry probed the general location of the lounge until he found the three boys and then pinged each one. One at a time they sent back data, the staggering of the input gave Harry pretty much a live feed of where everyone was. Deciding to try something new he moved himself into the chair he normally used. All three boys cheered when he arrived, Simon threw a wadded up piece of paper at him, which he deflected easily. Suddenly Harry felt a tap from Elena, "Harry, I've been monitoring your progress this morning, you've been doing a great job. I spoke to Professor Dumbledore, he suggested you try to move yourself to the gates of Hogwarts for a distance test, he headed down a few minutes ago so you can use him as a focus." Harry gave an affirmative and let Mark, Coggy, and Simon know what he was going to try.
They all gave him a thumbs up and he started building an image of the gates in his head. Suddenly he was drawn there by the very familiar presence of his Headmaster. While he had seen Dumbledore fight Tom with agility he wouldn't have suspected of someone his age, the mind of the old wizard was astounding to look at. After the initial shock he pinged the professor and began getting information back and after a few seconds he moved himself to a point just next to Dumbledore. Turning to face him the old headmaster smiled and said, "It seems this Institute Arthur has kept from me is doing you well Harry. I met with their Headmistress the other night, she is a very enlightening woman." He put a hand out for Harry to shake and he took it, "Take care my boy, don't forget we have a meeting scheduled for before the start of term." Harry nodded and thanked Dumbledore for being understanding about the whole situation before moving himself back to the institute. "That is wicked, but I need to make sure I don't just move around all the time, I have no idea how you guys still manage to use the stairs." As if on cue all three boys said ,"Willpower" at once and began to laugh.
Looking at his watch Harry realized it was time for lunch, which he announced to the rest of the group. As one they made their way down the stairs, excitedly talking about the other things Harry and Mark should focus on in their lessons. It wasn't long after they were done eating when a vaguely familiar woman came into the hall and began scanning the sparse lunch crowd. "Check out this one then." Said Simon, elbowing Coggy knowingly. "Bet she'd know a thing or two to teach us." He winked conspiratorially at Mark and Harry who were sitting across from him, facing away from the door. "I'd drop the attitude mate," began Mark, "She's got some pretty solid shields up, must be an Auror, and I'm pretty sure sexually harassing an Auror is a crime." He winked back across the table at Simon who was now studying the ends of his sandwich in great detail. "Oh shite she's coming over 'ere!" whispered Coggy before he too decided that his plate was worthy of inspection. A moment later Harry felt a hand on his shoulder, "Wotcher Harry! Ready for our lessons?" Harry grinned and leaned back into Tonks who leaned down to pull him into a hug. "How're things cuz?" asked Harry, laughing at the sputtering sounds his friends were making.
He stood and she put a hand on either shoulder, taking him in, "You look good in clothes that fit you, but what's all this about 'cuz'?" Harry grinned and said, "Allow me to reintroduce myself," he adopted a posh accent and did his best Malfoy condescending smile, "Lord Harry Potter-Black at your service." Tonks. Went. White. "Y-y-you mean that he left…" Harry pulled her into a hug and whispered into her ear, "Yeah, everything, but I plan on reinstating you and your mum and giving you your fair shares. You'll be Blacks again by the end of the week." Harry wasn't just blowing steam; even now a part of his mind was reviewing pureblood customs from the book he had 'read' the other day. When she pulled back her face was tear-streaked and she was sort of half laughing, half crying. "Thank you thank you thank you!" She punctuated each phrase with a kiss on his cheek. He began to blush deeply, "Hey, its what Sirius would've done if he wasn't, you know, a wanted murderer." He adopted a lop-sided grin that reminded her of Sirius and she burst into laughter. Meanwhile Harry's friends were all staring at the pair of them, dumbfounded. "So are they cousins?" asked Mark. "Or lovers?" asked Coggy. "Ex-lovers?" conjectured Simon. Harry, perturbed by the perverted thoughts of two-thirds of his friends sent a burst of information and memory, explaining everything. "Oooooh." Said all three at once.
"Come on Tonks, let's get to work." Muttered an exasperated Harry, dragging his Auror friend out of the cafeteria and down the hallway. Awaiting them in Room One were two men in suits, Harry thought he recognized one from the day of his incident. "Auror Tonks, Trainee Potter-Black, I am Unspeakable Reynolds," he gestured to the man next to him, "this is Unspeakable Washburn." Harry nodded to each of them in turn. "We'll be supervising your training, augmenting it occasionally so that you are taking full advantage of your abilities." Tonks eyed them for a minute before pulling Reynolds aside and whispering, "You have no idea what he is capable of do you? You're just going to try to break spell theory with him since he's a T0." Reynolds shifted uncomfortably, unused to being called out like this, "Auror Tonks, I assure you that there is a method to our madness. Rufus Scrimgeour filled us in on the importance of this trainee's survival. We're going to have him try some difficult things, but if he doesn't know his boundaries it will be easier for him to try them. We've done an extensive psychological background on him and we don't think it is a danger to trust him with this much power, he isn't going to hurt anyone and you know damn well we'd be burnt at the stake for hurting him." Tonks conceded the point and they returned to the center of the room."
"Alright Harry, what we're going to start with is a practice duel. I want you to come at me with everything you know, just try to refrain from killing me." She grinned as his face paled. "Don't worry Harry, nothing like that is going to happen." He smiled weakly and they began to duel, forcing the two Unspeakables to shield themselves in a corner, away from the foray. A few things were evident to Tonks after a few minutes of dueling and she called a cease-fire. Harry took the time to stretch and catch his breath a little. The first thing she noticed was that his spell repertoire was pitiful, mostly schoolyard pranks, his only useful offensive spell being Stupefy. She was going to have to work with him on some more advanced spells. The second thing she noticed was his abnormal accuracy. Sure he had been training in secret all of last year, but she either had to deflect or shield against each spell he cast, nothing went wide, even when she dodged out of the way. She reached into her bag and pulled out an Auror grade spellbook and tossed it to Harry. "Read that for a bit while I talk to these two knuckleheads." Harry nodded and opened the book randomly, holding it at an odd angle. She shook her head and joined the two Unspeakables in the corner.
"Do all psions have that deadly accuracy thing? I couldn't get away from his spells." Washburn shook his head, "No, but that gives me an idea for an experiment, if you don't mind." She shook her head "Explain it to me." He conjured a small ball of light in his hand. "Most spells we can't control the trajectory of once they leave our wands. From what you just experienced we can conjecture that Harry is subconsciously using his psionic ability to tweak his spells so that they always hit home. He might think that he is just willing it to hit, but that's the thing about psions, when they will something to move, it moves." She nodded, "But from what you're saying this isn't normal." Washburn shook his head, "No, most psions can only move solid objects like this, not complex spell woven energy. This is the first we've heard of anyone doing it." Tonks pinched her eyes, Arithmancy wasn't her strong suit "So what do you want me to do?" Reynolds took out his wand, "I want you to distract Harry, then I'm going to fire a stinging hex at him and I want to see what happens when his instincts take over." Tonks raised her eyebrow at him, "Stinging hex only, right?" Them an grinned and held out his pinky, "Pinky promise." She stuck her tongue out at him and grabbed his pinky with her own before turning back to Harry.
As she approached he held out her book to her, "Good read, but if you misfire a bone-breaking hex and hit someone in the head, wouldn't that be lethal?" She eyed him strangely as she turned his attention away from the corner, "Did you just read this whole book?" Harry nodded, and then slapped his forehead with his palm, "Oh you must not know, they show us how to 'absorb' books, for lack of a better term. I haven't found my limit yet so I thought this book would be as good as any." She was still staring at him slack-jawed when it happened, she saw a flash of light behind him and he was suddenly facing the opposite direction, holding his hands out in front of him. Coming around to see what happened she saw the dull red energy of a stinging hex hovering inches from Harry's hands, "I cannot believe that worked…" started Tonks, staring at the ball of energy in Harry's hands. Now that he had control of it he was tossing it from hand to hand, then he split it and began juggling it. "Stop showing off, do you know how you're doing that?" Harry put the spell back together and then launched it at the wall where it left a faint scorch mark. "Yeah, once I stopped it I realized what I was doing, I formed a small shield between myself and the spell, then for convenience sake I formed it into a ball. Splitting it was just reforming the shield and then I just moved the shield around and then spell went with it."
The Unspeakables nodded to themselves and took some notes, "Harry do you mind if we try some experiments with you sometimes when we're here for your training? We could learn a lot from someone with your abilities." Harry shrugged, "Anything to help, just as long as my name is kept out of any official documents, I don't want my abilities to be public knowledge, the less Tom knows the better." Then men looked to each other and then back at Harry, "You do know we're called Unspeakables right?" Harry grinned and then turned to Tonks, "Okay want to start again? See what I can do with these new spells?" He winked and she shifted nervously, "Just don't send me to the infirmary okay Harry?"
They stood at dueling range and saluted before they began firing spells at one another, lighting up the room in a rainbow of sparks. Harry had his accuracy but Tonks had unique spell combinations that took him by surprise. After ten minutes they had to stop as Harry gasped for breath and Tonks grabbed a bottle of water from a side table. Throwing a second one at Harry she said, "Good, but you need to work on your combinations and sometimes you might need to intentionally miss to lead a target where you want them, so you'll need to work on that as well. Finally your stamina is shite, so I'm going to talk to your Headmistress to see if there is a physical training course we could opt you into. I'll work on training your magical core, and they can work on training your physical stamina so you can outlast that snake, and anyone you have to fight through to get to him." Harry nodded and sat against the wall, draining his bottle.
"I think that is enough for today Harry, if you have time practice 'missing' spells and work on manipulating spells the way you did with that Stinging Hex. Also find a book on wandless spellcasting and see if you can do anything with that." Harry climbed to his feet and draped his sweaty form over Tonks, "Yes Professor Tonks. We'll go to the Ministry and then Gringotts on Friday afternoon, bring your mum." Tonks beamed up at him, and then realizing she was looking up at him she stood back and eyed him suspiciously, "Harry have you grown four inches in a few weeks?"
Looking down at himself he shrugged, "I guess so, why you like them tall dark and handsome?" He waggled his eyebrows at her. She swatted his arm, "Yeah Harry, but I also like them older, sorry mate." She winked and he blushed. "Oh don't do that Harry you're a very attractive guy, I'm just six years older than you, not that age bothers me but Molly would kill me for 'corrupting the youth' or something." Harry grinned and pulled her into a hug, "Thanks for that Tonks, the closest anyone's come to telling me I'm attractive was fan girls telling me that I'm 'absolutely dreamy'." She guffawed and broke away from Harry, heading to the front of the institute to the apparition point. The Unspeakables came past Harry heading towards their offices, clapping him on the shoulder as they passed.