Author's note:
I know it has been a while, but life has a way of catching up with you. Work takes more and more hours away from you and I'm lucky enough to have my wedding coming up in a few months.
As for this chapter, I'm not sure how I feel about it. It has a lot of exposition and while it covers a lot of ground it really only serves as a lead in for the next chapter. Still, I'd like to know what you think so please, leave a review so that I can gauge your reception. Thanks in advance. -PP
As the school slowly rolled into October, Harry and Luna let their relationship progress at a leisurely pace. They could often be found hand in hand, walking the grounds or escorting one another to class. More than one prefect had sent them on their separate ways after finding them in empty classrooms and expanded broom closets. Their friends tolerated their budding relationship since they were able to contain themselves during study group and their psionics training. Besides, Hermione and Ron would be burgeoning on hypocritical if they were to speak up.
Conversely, the weekend following the attack on Hogsmeade found the school still in a somber state. The banners mourning Cassandra would remain in the Great hall until Halloween. As with most Sundays, Harry was in his office working on one of his projects. He still hadn't gotten the runes quite right for his ear buds and had set them aside. Now he was working on a device that would work counter to Peruvian Darkness Powder. It was loosely based on muggle glow sticks, but with the power of a maximized Lumos when the magical substances inside the container interacted. Then, after the initial blast of light, the remains would subside to a weak Lumos. He had read about flash bang grenades at some point over the summer and was working to create his own mass non-lethal debilitating device.
Someone knocking on his office door brought him to the present and he called for whomever it was to enter as he slid his experiments to one side of his desk. Draco entered and sat across from him, eyes attempting to bore a hole in Harry's head. Harry noticed that he held the Biology text loosely in his lap. "Did you have a question about your assignment Mr. Malfoy?" Draco had been turning in his chapter assignments like clockwork at the beginning of class each week since they had been assigned.
"Have…" Draco paused, shook his head and started over, "Are there any studies from the government on the effects of magical heritage on magical proficiency?" Harry studied Draco over his peaked fingers, something he had learned from Snape, before he stood and walked to his bookshelf. He pulled a thin volume bound in card stock and walked around his desk to hand it to Draco. "I had to track down the author for a copy. Fudge had all references to it purged from the Ministry records." He returned to his seat as Draco began to flip through the pages.
"Ruby Jones is a Muggleborn of some renown in that world. She attended Hogwarts in the eighties, starting before Voldemort fell and finishing about ten years ago. She worked with a few muggle friendly purebloods and as many half's and muggleborns as she could find. You can read all the boring research notes yourself, but the short version is that witches and wizards with juggles in their family tree showed signs of magic sooner and stronger than those without. Also, while purebloods had the advantage of homeschooling and family grimoires, they did worse overall in their O.W.L.'s and N.E.W.T.'s. Now, that could just be arrogance but Ruby couldn't really quantify that." Harry leaned back as he watched Draco take in the information. They sat in silence for fifteen minutes as Draco read.
"So what all of this is saying is that were the Ancient and Noble houses to marry more half-bloods and muggleborns they would be more powerful in the long run." Draco finally looked up from the report. Harry couldn't tell if his hands were shaking in anger or frustration but he hadn't reached for his wand yet, so Harry figured it was safe to continue.
"Look at the Potters and the Blacks. In the last few generations they've been known to marry unorthodox partners, which is a big reason why you and I aren't squibs. Sure the Blacks were against it but you can't deny we are better off than some of our pureblood classmates when it comes to class rankings. I have access to most of that information now. You're at least 20 places in front of most of your Slytherin year mates, Daphne and Tracy being the only exceptions as they're up there with Hermione and the Ravenclaws. They come to the DA to do their homework; you may want to consider coming every once in a while as well. If those two can make some use of it, you should be just fine." Draco gave a noncommittal shrug and said he'd think about it.
Standing, the Slytherin reached for the Biology text and waved it and the report, "May I borrow these?" Harry grinned and nodded, adding "Keep them, I've got copies." Draco thanked him and silently swept out of the office, leaving Harry to contemplate their meeting. He honestly wasn't sure if Draco would change his mind so readily, he had been force-fed pureblood doctrine his whole life after all. The worst that could happen, he supposed, was for Draco to use it to find another angle of attack for the purebloods, but for the life of him he couldn't think of a way that the information could be used to their advantage. Ruby had relocated across the pond after the attack at the ministry, and while he was certain she would be difficult to find and even more difficult to attack, he would reach out to her and give her a heads up that something might be coming her way.
Hermione tapping him to remind him about their lessons interrupted his ruminations. Promising her that he would be right up, Harry locked all of his work into his desk and proceeded to activate his personal set of wards. A few minutes later he was slowly making his way to the Room of Requirement where he and his friends held their training sessions. So far their shields were coming along and they were all able to tap Harry and each other. While they were under the castle's wards, they couldn't practice translocation but Harry had a plan for the evening anyway. He was going to enlist the guys at the Institute for long distance tapping and pinging practice.
When he arrived at the Room of Requirements he found two separate battles taking place. Neville and Ron were off in one corner sparring with their weapons. Hermione and Ginny were dwelling in another, spells flashing back and forth inside a dueling shield. Watching them for a few minutes he saw that they would stop when one got the advantage, talk about it briefly, and then begin again. As he was observing Luna came up to him and took his hand, "They've been going at it since dinner, it is as much an endurance exercise at this point as anything else." Turning to him she pulled him into a brief kiss before backing away slowly and gently pushing his chest. "I'll go and collect them, you get things ready for us. Maybe have Dobby bring some refreshments for these four."
Following orders, Harry had a comfortable set of couches, cushions, and chairs set up in a pattern they had used before. Dobby had arrived briefly to set a tray of glasses, an ice bucket, and pitchers of water and lemonade on the low table in the center of the seats. By the time his friends joined him he was reclining on a love seat with a glass of lemonade. "You all looked good out there, Luna said you had been going for a while, how do you feel?"
Ron and Neville, red faced and sweating, gulped some water down before answering, "Not running out of breath as quickly as before," began Ron, "but I think Simon may need to alter our strength training, I'll talk to him about it next week." Harry's eyes lit at this tie-in to his lesson, "Actually I think you'll be able to ask him tonight. We are going to work on your range. Since you're all familiar with the guys you should be able to reach out to them and establish a link. They've all been given passwords for each of you. Once all five of you collect your passwords we will move on to pinging them for locational information. It is a key step in translocating to an unknown location. If we do well tonight I'll arrange a field trip for Saturday morning."
The rest of the Ministry Six sank into their seats and closed their eyes. Their progress was slower than his, but Mark and Elena explained that their minds were less attuned to the art than his was due to his overexposure from Voldemort's assaults the year before. To pass the time until one of them completed the first task, he retrieved a pole of homework from his satchel and began to grade. Though almost all of his students' theoretical education was self-taught, he felt that an appropriate amount of them were correctly grasping the concepts required for their end of year exams. He was noting the names of a few students that he felt were having difficulty when Luna shifted on the love seat and whispered three words into his ear.
Turning, he was able to catch her lips with his before she pulled away and turned to observe their friends. "Mark said everyone was able to contact him, but Simon is playing dirty by being at a pub down the block, and Coggy is deliberately masking himself by pretending to be asleep. I think as more people figure it out the activity will out them and their schemes."
Harry grinned; he hadn't exactly given the guys parameters for the test so he couldn't be too mad at them. Besides, getting Hermione to think outside the box by reflex was a supplementary goal he had set for himself. Slowly the rest of his friends returned their attention to the world around them. Neville and Ginny came to first, but were closely followed by Ron and Hermione. "That wasn't very fair," grumbled Hermione when she was all the way back, "You didn't say Simon would be half a kilometer away!" she crossed her arms and glared, frustrated, at Harry who was grinning back at her like an idiot.
"I didn't really outline rules for them, I just asked them to be available for your session tonight. Once you figured out he wasn't there it wasn't too hard to hunt down his signal was it? You just widened your net and found him in the huge mass of static that is downtown London. Job well done I'd say." She opened her mouth to argue, realized she didn't have an argument to make, and let it close softly. That handled, Harry stood and stretched before turning his focus to an empty part of the training area.
Concentrating, Harry held his hand out and focused on an image in his mind. He slowly whispered an incantation as something began to form in the space in front of him. His companions kept silent, wondering what Harry was showing them. Luna had a small grin on her face; she had a good idea what he was doing. As the thing took shape they all saw it form into a humanoid frame, a head taller than Dobby and glowing scarlet. When Harry finally put his hand down the thing started to move around the room, gathering objects and moving them to their proper places.
"Harry," began Hermione slowly, not taking her eyes from the creature, "What exactly is that?" as she spoke the thing came over to Neville and held up its hand. Hesitantly, Neville followed tradition, pulled his hand back, and gave the thing a high-five. "He's a construct of my will directed by my thoughts. I merged it a bit with a color changing spell so you can see him and his abilities are a little limited, but my end goal is to be able to create my own back-up. I call him 'Todd'." Both Hermione and Ginny looked puzzled and mouthed 'Todd?' at each other before returning their gaze to Harry. "It, uh, doesn't stand for anything, I just think Todd is a fitting name."
Luna walked over to Todd and leaned down before pulling him into a hug. "Oh, he's quite warm. Kind of feels like Prongs, Harry." She smiled broadly at her boyfriend who returned a boyish grin. "I didn't want him to seem scary to my friends, I guess I got some of my patronus spell work to leak in from my intent. I doubt Todd could go mano-a-creepo with a Dementor or Lethifold, but maybe I can push some more of Prongs into the spell work in the future. It just gives me more to practice and refine." With a wave of his hand he dismissed the construct, "Takes me less time to create him each time I do it, so my hope is to get it down to a few seconds max." At this, Harry stifled a yawn, which sent a cascading effect throughout the room.
"I think," began Ron, standing and pulling Hermione to her feet, "that we should all head back to our dorms and turn in. We had a productive training session but as Hermione will gladly tell us, we have classes tomorrow." Hermione stuck her tongue out at him before pulling him in for a soft kiss and leading him out of the room. Ginny and Neville rolled their eyes at each other and followed the two prefects out, chatting about their experiences fighting before Harry had arrived.
Turning to Luna, Harry held his hand out to her, "Shall we?" Luna smiled and slid her small, delicate fingers into his, leaning into him as they exited the Room of Requirement and headed down the hall, taking the scenic route to Ravenclaw tower. They didn't speak much, they didn't have to, and they enjoyed being close to one another since they were apart most of the day every day. As they walked past a window, a tendril of cold air whipped across their faces, causing Luna to pull him closer. "It's getting colder out." Said Harry, Luna simply nodded into his chest. "You've got your heavy robes? Your dorm mates haven't been helping themselves to your things again have they?" Luna shook her head and he could feel her smiling against his chest.
"No, Hermione and Ginny taught me some privacy spells and some simple wards to keep my things safe. A few girls had to go around with blue hands for a week or so while the spells word off from their transgressions. I never explained to Professor Flitwick why the girls had hands to match their robes and they thanked me by not trying again. Which is for the best, second attempts are when the boils start cropping up." She grinned at him and danced away from him and down the hallway a few feet, spinning and giggling as she progressed down the final hallway to Ravenclaw Tower.
"Do I want to know what happens if they try a third time?" Harry asked, chuckling as Luna's infectious happiness overtook him. Shaking her head, she bit her lip and smiled, tilting her head down so she had to look up to make eye contact with him. "Nope." He strode purposefully and closed the distance between them, drawing her into a strong embrace. He pulled her up to her toes and drew her into a deep kiss, causing the nearby paintings to gasp and begin muttering. When he set her down her cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright. "Nothing better than a goodnight kiss from the cutest boy in school." She whispered mischievously before slowly turning and making her way to her dorm.
Harry's smile took a while to fade as he made his way back to Gryffindor Tower, summoning Todd along the way to keep him company. The construct glowed a sky blue this time and half floated, half walked ahead of him down the hallway, peering around corners and behind tapestries for unknown danger. Unsurprisingly they made it back to Harry's dorm in one piece and he dismissed the creature with a wave of his hand. As he climbed into bed he thought about the events of the day, and decided he needed to sit down with Professor Dumbledore and fill him in on everything that was happening. That, however, could wait until tomorrow.