A/N: Most characters and the main plot belongs to J.K Rowling.
Harry was currently out by the Black Lake, and he was firing some spells at some trees, trying to keep up with his magical training, which he had discarded in the last week of school. He knew that he shouldn't have, but it had just been a huge change to his pace, and he needed time to adapt. Just as he fired a severing curse at one of the trees, he noticed someone had appeared next to him. He pointed his wand at the person, another curse on the tip of his tongue, but he didn't fire once he saw who it was. It was Professor Dumbledore.
"Hello Harry, I must say, that was quite an impressive severing charm, and I think that if you flourished your arm a little less, than it would be even better." The man said with his usual grandfatherly tone and his twinkling eyes. Harry wasn't sure what made his eyes twinkle, but he had intended to ask the man plenty of times before, but always thought it was rude to ask, so he refrained from it.
"Hello Professor, and thank you, I've been trying to make it more powerful, but something seemed off every time." Harry replied. Once he said that, he turned around, and sent off another severing curse at another tree, and this time, the tree was cut off cleanly, and the curse even dug into the tree behind it a little. Being satisfied with his work for the day, he turned to look at the professor.
"I see you've adapted well to the new year, most of the teachers are already telling me that you have improved greatly, even Professor Snape was impressed, and I tell you, that isn't the easiest of accomplishments" the Headmaster said with a chuckle. Harry stood a little taller at the praise, but didn't say anything about it. He knew that a lot of it was thanks to the man standing in front of him, his Godfather, and his honorary Uncle. "I thought that it might be a good idea to tell you, that if you ask the elves to show you a place where you would be able to train, I'm sure they would show you, I did stumble across a room which I had never seen before last week, and have never been able to find since. I think that you have destroyed enough trees for this year, we wouldn't want to anger the centaurs." He finished with a gentle smile.
Harry thanked the man, and together, they made their way back to the castle, talking about the year so far. Harry was surprised at the amount of paperwork the Headmaster had in the first week alone, it was enough to decide that he would never want to be headmaster in his life. Once they entered the Entrance Hall, they received a few curious looks, as well as a few shocked looks at the apparent relationship between the student and the Headmaster. Not many students got to have a friendly relationship with Dumbledore, but Harry Potter had apparently done exactly that, something else to add to the list of things that he had done, which not everyone could do. The two people who were receiving the looks, didn't seem to even blink at the attention, of course, they were very much aware of it, only they knew that it was good to act as if it was normal, it would only help to influence the newbies in politics, something which Sirius had told Harry, and Dumbledore had shown him.
There were apparently 2 techniques to this, you either ignored the looks, or you made sure everyone knew that you were looking at them, and attempt to strike fear in them, so that they would follow you, not by awe or because they agreed with your views, but because of fear, something which Voldemort had made sure to use to his advantage in the first war with the help of his followers.
Harry and Dumbledore eventually arrived in front of a painting with a bowl of fruit on it. This was a place which Harry had never visited, but was sure that the Hufflepuff common room was around here somewhere. Dumbledore reached up to the painting, and tickled the pear. Surprising Harry, it giggled, and it turned into a handle. Dumbledore opened the door, and Harry walked in behind him. He walked into a room which was probably the size of the Great Hall, in fact, it looked like the Great Hall, except for the fact that where the four house tables would have been, there were plenty of choices of food, and shorter tables, which seemed to align themselves with what would actually be the House tables. Harry looked around, and noticed a lot of elves, something which surprised him at first sight, but then realised that the food didn't appear out of thin air, it was against the laws of magic. As soon as they walked in, they were surrounded by the elves, all offering tea, biscuits and other assortments of food and drinks. Dumbledore grabbed a cup of tea and a few biscuits, and Harry grabbed a butterbeer, something which surprised him, as he had never seen at the table. Harry sent a curious look to the professor.
"Ah yes, there is always butterbeer at the staff table, I must say that I'm not the greatest of fans, but the rest of the staff seem to enjoy it." He said with a shrug. Harry took a sip out of his drink, and a bite out of his biscuit, before Dumbledore spoke to the elves. "Now, Tick, could you please show Harry here a place where he could use magic, and practice new spells without permanently damaging the building ?" He asked. The elf called Tick was ecstatic at the prospect of more work, and went over to Harry immediately.
"Of course, sir, he can use the come and go room on the seventh floor." the little elf said happily.
"What, may I ask, is the come-and-go room ?" Dumbledore asked politely, although Harry had a feeling that Dumbledore actually knew what it was, but asked for Harry's purpose.
"It is the place where all elves hide things which are no longer used, and other students have hidden things too" Tick replied, once again, he sounded too happy for someone who worked a lot in Harry's opinion, He remembered what it was like when he was with the Dursleys', and he definitely didn't consider that fun.
"Very well, and where can I find this room, I've been in this castle long enough to know that there isn't an obvious room where one could hide generations of objects ?" Once again, the old man seemed to know the answer.
"You's be having to walk in front of the wall opposite the wall with the painting of Barnabas The Barmy teaching the trolls three times, thinking of whats you be needing." The seventh floor wasn't one which Harry visited much, so he couldn't place it exactly. He would have to search for it later on.
"Thank you very much, Tick, that was most insightful." Dumbledore said to the elf, who was bouncing at the praise. Harry and Dumbledore both took another biscuit each, before leaving the elves to do their work. "Very helpful beings, elves." Dumbledore said once they passed the entrance to the Great Hall. "Well Harry, I must leave you to your musings, I have a lot of paperwork to fill in, and I have a meeting with the minister to attend. Have a nice day." He said. Harry returned the farewell, before the man left.
Just as he was about to leave for the seventh floor, Daphne came up from behind him. "Hello Lightning, what are you doing ?" She asked casually.
"Hello Queenie," he began, at the mention of her nickname, she perked up a little, "I was just about to head up to the seventh floor, there's something I want to check out." He replied, not having noticed Daphne's reaction to her name.
"Oh well, I'm sure you wouldn't mind the company." she said. Together, they left for the seventh floor, all the while making small talk. "So, what's the thing you've got to check out ? I hope it's not another room with a three-headed dog in it, if it is, tell me now, so I can leave." The two of them laughed at this, and so Harry explained exactly what it was he was looking for. "So you're looking for a room which isn't on the Marauder's Map, a map which shows every room in the castle ?" She asked a little unbelievably, since she had known about the map, she had thought it showed every room, why wouldn't it show this one ?
"Yes, but like the elves said, the room can be whatever we want it to be, they use it to store stuff in it, Dumbledore used it as a toilet once, and I'm sure other people have used it for many other things before." Harry said with a shrug, he didn't know why the room didn't appear on the map, maybe the Marauders never discovered the room, therefore, there wasn't a way for it to appear on the map. He voiced this out to Daphne, and she considered it, and in the end, she agreed that it could be a possibility, and that he should ask Sirius later on.
Once they were on the seventh floor, they began looking for the painting, and found it in the left wing of the seventh floor. He paced in front of it three times, thinking about a room for training, and after he passed it three times, he was surprised to see a door there. Daphne had a look of utter shock on her face, she was trying to think of the magic which would be needed for this sort of room. Harry looked at her, and she nodded at his silent question. He approached the door, and opened it, Daphne close behind him. Once he looked inside, he was shocked, the room was massive. The two teens were in complete awe.
The two of them stood there for a few seconds, before deciding to walk in. On the left wall, there was a big bookshelf full of books, books on defence, he guessed. On the right side of the room, there was a load of pictures depicting what various curses did to a human, and in the back of the room, there was nothing, just an empty space. Harry approached it, Daphne close to his heels, and once they reached it, training dummies came out of the ground, a shining circle too, and on the wall, there were some runes which lit up. Beneath each of them, there was a panel describing what it did. One of them was to increase and decrease the size of the targets, another was to enable or disable the ability for the dummies to fire spells back at him, not any dangerous spells he imagined, one which determined the umber of dummies, another to produce a shield around a certain zone, so that the spells that the user was using, wouldn't have a chance of hurting anyone by accident, and finally, there was an activation rune.
Harry decided that he immediately wanted to try this out, so went towards the panel. Daphne stepped into the centre of the ring, which was on the floor. Harry looked at her confused for a second, before she responded to the silent question with a shrug, which he took to mean 'Why not'. He walked up to the panel, and pushed what he assumed was a button to generate the shield. Turns out, it wasn't a button, and that was confirmed by Daphne laughing. "This isn't the muggle world, Harry, you have to push some magic into it to activate it." she said once she finished with her fit of laughter. Harry huffed, and turned to the panel once more, and attempted to push magic into it, after a few seconds, he managed to feel his magic, and pushed it to the tip of his fingers, and released it. A huge white dome appeared in the circle surrounding Daphne, so she decided to fire a spell at it. The spell was immediately absorbed by the dome without wavering in the slightest. Harry decided that he wanted to try out the facilities, so he activated the dummies which fired back, made four of them appear, and made them human size.
He walked into the centre of the circle along with Daphne, and waited for something to happen. Nothing did. He looked at Daphne, and she shrugged and decided to throw a spell at one of them, and at that point, spells began flying all over the place. Harry was hit almost immediately, and Daphne followed a short moment later. As soon as they were both hit, the simulation stopped. "Well, that was good." Harry said sarcastically. Daphne nodded, and they began again, but this time they were expecting it, so they had time to shield themselves. Harry also noticed that the spells had different colours, obviously representing different spells. This time, thanks to his training this summer, Harry actually managed to dodge a few, and even fired a spell back, but he got hit after about 30 seconds, Daphne having got hit a dozen seconds earlier.
"This is going to take some time to get the habit of." Daphne said with a hint of annoyance in her voice.
"Hey, don't worry about it Queenie, we'll get better, but yes, it will need time, a lot of time." Harry said with a smile towards the girl. Harry cast a quick 'tempus', and noticed that it was half-way through dinner time, and Harry's stomach chose that exact moment to cry out, asking to be fed.
"Well, I guess that's it for today." Daphne said with a laugh. Harry nodded, and together they made their way down to the Great Hall for some much-needed food, well in Harry's case anyway.
A couple of weeks had gone by, and since that day, Harry had gone back to the room many times, sometimes finding Daphne or his other friends in there. They had had a small party between the five of them in there for Hermione's birthday. She didn't want anything big, so they just kept it between themselves. She had received presents from everyone, mainly books, which she seemed to devour in a short period of time. Harry had also attended Quidditch practice, and had easily made the team. Their was a girl called Cho Chang who had tried out for the position, but once they saw Harry's raw skill along with the Firebolt prototype, there wasn't even a second choice really,Harry had just surpassed Cho in everything.
They had told them about the room the day afterwards in the library. Hermione had got all excited at the prospect of being able to access every book in the world. The first time harry and Daphne had gone up to show them, Harry told Hermione to imagine the thing she wanted, and she was just about bouncing off the walls at being able to try out her theory of the library of her choice. Turns out, she isn't able to get every book she wants, only those present in Hogwarts, even the restricted section, although she couldn't take them beyond the room, so whenever she had free time, she'd almost certainly be here, because it offered peace the library didn't, plus some books which it didn't either.
Neville had decided that he wanted to join Harry and Daphne in training, and soon enough, Hermione and Tracey also decided that it would be a good idea, it never hurt to be prepared. They had decided that they would, for now, each take turns in it, so that they could learn to defend themselves. It was decided that they would go against one dummy at a time, and that when one of them could defeat the dummy ten times in a row, that person would pass onto 2. Tracey had actually proved to be very good at this, as she passed onto two within the first week. She had said that it helped that she had been dancing since she was small, and that she had done a bit of fencing, something a lot of pureblood families did. Daphne and Neville had both done them, but none of them had taken the lessons seriously, well, not as seriously as Tracey. That was a decision they now regret taking. Hermione was probably the worst at it, but then again, she grew up as a muggle, and was shunned in her childhood for her was rather clumsy, and had fallen over several times while trying to dodge a spell. Daphne, who had been training the most in the room in her free time, she literally spent all her free time here, except for meal times, had managed to pass onto stage two just yesterday. Although she did claim that she had slipped to dodge the last spell, which was what allowed her to win. Harry had passed a couple of days after Tracey, having used quite a powerful cutting hex during his last round, cleanly cutting of the dummies head.
The three, who had passed onto 2 dummies, found it to be much more challenging. Not only did they have to keep their eyes trained on 2 at the same time, but they also had to manage to immobilize them both. It proved to be extremely tricky, and none of them had made it passed two rounds in a row. Neville was close to finishing his rounds with the dummies, he had reached 8 in a row a couple of days ago, and Hermione had reached a total of 6, which was towards the beginning of the first week, something which surprised even her. This seemed to grate her nerves, as she couldn't manage to get much passed that, no matter how hard she tried.
The five friends were once again in the room of requirement, Hermione was reading, whereas Neville was training. Harry was looking at what Neville was doing to see if he could notice anything he was doing wrong. Neville was currently finding cover, the rest of his cover getting blasted away. Harry's assumption that the dummies wouldn't use harmful spells was wrong, although they didn't use spells that could seriously injure you. Neville was just running from his previous cover because it had been blown up, and ended up getting hit in the chest. There was nothing obviously wrong with what he was doing, but he did seem to spend too much time calculating where the spells would hit. It came to Harry by instinct, but not for the other boy in the group. He pointed this out to his friend, who nodded with a sigh.
"Don't worry, mate, you'll get there eventually. Just work on feeling magic around you, that should help with the direction of spells, plus if you train it enough, you'll be able to feel which spells are coming at you, but that takes a lot of time. Remus has been trying for years, and it's only just starting to register with him."
"Could you help me with that ?" Neville asked hesitantly, he knew Harry had other things to do than train him. "I'm not actually sure on where to start on that." He said after a short pause, hoping that Harry would at least give him a few tips.
"Sure, I don't see why not, in fact I could show all of you, it wouldn't hurt for everyone else here to be able to do it." Harry said with a shrug. Neville nodded his thanks, and together, they made their way to the couches where the rest of their friends were. Tracey and Daphne were both working on a potions essay. Snape seemed different this year, he didn't sneer at everyone as much, and he even removed points from Slytherin, something which was unheard of. They guessed that Dumbledore must have had a word with the Potions Master.
Harry took his seat next to Daphne, and Neville took a seat in an armchair in front of them. Hermione and Tracey were both seated on a sofa to the left of Harry and Daphne, whereas there was a roaring fire to their right. "So guys," Harry began, wanting to gain their attention, they all, surprisingly, looked up nearly immediately, "I've ha- well, Neville and I have had this idea," Neville sunk a little lower in his chair at the attention, although he did it much less this year than he had the year before, he had gained a lot of confidence since getting his own wand, and being able to perform spells correctly, "would you all like me to teach you what I know about feeling the magic around you ? This room would be great because we could ask it to generate wards so that we could get used to them."
Hermione nodded excitedly at this, she was always searching for new things to learn, and feeling magic was definitely one of them. "I already know the basics of it," Daphne said, "Father taught me when I was small, seems I'm the eldest daughter, I'll be taking up the estate once father passes away, so he said it would be helpful, as it's easier to sense if the wards are under attack."
"Good, you'll be able to help me with it then." Harry said, Daphne nodded agreeing with him.
"I think it would be a great idea, most of us are going to inherit an estate when were older, so it all helps" Tracey with a shrug.
"Well, that's settled then, we'll begin tomorrow, right now, I say we go down to the Great Hall for some dinner, I'm-" Harry began, but was interrupted by the other four.
"Starving" they chorused as they got up. The four of them began laughing, while Harry just huffed. They all heard him mumble something on the lines of "I'm a growing boy." They all laughed harder at this, and left the room.
For the next few weeks, the group of friends spent all of their free time in the room, sometimes, they would even get one of Harry's elves, or one of the school elves, to deliver food to them instead of eating in the Great Hall, so that they would get more time. Neville and Hermione had both managed to get passed the single dummy stage, and were working hard on the two dummies. None of the others had managed to get passed the dummies, but they had partly neglected that part of the training in the last week or so, in favour of learning to feel magic. The room had come in incredibly useful for this, as it provided all sorts of wards for them to practice feeling, and they would also fire spells near someone to see if they could sense which spell it was. Hermione had sort-of managed once, but she claimed it was only guess-work. None of them expected to be able to sense spells too soon, not from what Harry told them about Moony.
They had also been looking through books for new spells which they could use. Harry had asked some of his elves to bring some over, all of which were helpful, however, some of them contained dark magic, well, that's what Harry believed until Daphne put him straight on that.
"Honestly, Harry, there's no such thing as dark magic, it all depends on how you use it. Some dark spells can be used for medical purposes. Dad has always told me that magic is just shades of grey, and that sure, some are darker than others, but none are dark. Even the killing curse can be used as a kindness. It all depends on what you intend to use them for." She said. Tracey nodded, she had been told the same, Hermione looked thoughtful at the fact, and Neville didn't seem to care in the slightest. Harry shrugged in response, he would have to give it some thought. After that, they all returned to their reading.
After a little while, Harry had a thought. "Would I be able to share my family magic with you ?" he asked, rather too abruptly for Daphne, Tracey and Neville, who looked at him in utter shock at the idea even being suggested. Hermione looked a little surprised, but not as much as the others. Harry just sat there, waiting for a response.
"Harry," Neville began, "you do know that family magic is to stay in the family, because if you share it with someone else, they can also share it with their family, and nobody knows how bad their families could get in the future, so it's a very dangerous thing to do. And besides, all of us here, except Hermione, have our own set of family magic, and Hermione is smart enough to invent her own spells." Tracey and Daphne both nodded at this. Harry looked a little disappointed at this, but didn't push the idea any further.
A few minutes later, Hermione spoke up. "Hey, I think I've found something useful. It's a spell to repel dementors, and according to this, in the last war, they joined sides with Voldemort. But it's meant to be really hard to perform. Apparently, it requires a lot of power, and you need to think of a really happy memory while casting, because the only way to repel a dementor, is if you provide it with too much happiness, it's the one thing a dementor can't stand. In the book, it says that it isn't necessarily the memory which you need to remember, but the feeling. The incantation is 'Expecto Patronum', and there isn't any wand movement. Should we give it a go ?" She asked. There was a nod on Harry's part, almost immediately, he knew of the prophecy and the Horcruxes, and if Voldemort did come back, they would probably join his side once again. The others followed, and nodded as well.
They all got up, and spread out. "Right so, think of a memory, one where you were happy, and try to remember everything about that feeling, from where it stemmed, to the genuine smile you had on your face." Hermione said. After that, the group of five all closed their eyes, and tried to remember that feeling. Harry had immense trouble thinking of one, the happiest was probably having a new home, with his Godfather and honorary uncle living with him, or the fact that he had found some amazing friends, and that they had come to his first ever birthday party.
Once everybody had theirs, Hermione continued. "Now, think of that memory, point your wand in front of you, and say 'Expecto Patronum'." So, that's what they did, however nothing happened. "Well, I did say that it wasn't easy." She said defensively. They continued trying for around an hour, before they all sat down once again, feeling exhausted. Only Daphne had managed to create a wisp, the others had managed to make the tip of their wands glow. None of them knew if it was because they hadn't chosen a happy enough memory, or if they weren't putting enough power into the spell. Harry was the most powerful of them all in magical potential, however, he, along with Neville, had the worst childhood out of the lot. Sure Neville still had a family, but he grew up knowing that his parents would never recognize him, and with his family believing he was a squib, he also didn't have friends growing up, he was too shy at the time, but since he met the other four, he has grown in confidence immensely.
"I reckon we've done enough for today, why don't we go outside, and enjoy the last of the decent weather we'll be getting ? It's nearly Halloween, after all." Tracey stated. The others nodded, and they all made their way out. Harry was thinking about whether or not he should ask the headmaster to tell his friends about the prophecy or not, after all, he had sworn a secrecy vow not to tell anyone without his permission.
A/N: Thank you for reading, I know it might get annoying the delay between chapters, but I can't really update much, I've been at work 6 days out of 7, and the day rest I get is just that, so I write whenever I can find a little free time. I hope you're still enjoying the story, and that you like the pace. I know this chapter has gone through quite some time, but there isn't really anything I can do until the chamber is opened.
Replies:
About the time Harry spends in Diagon Alley in chapter 2, He doesn't get up at 9.30, that was the time he got to his room the previous night. There isn't a godmother listed because he doesn't have one. In the books there wasn't one mentioned, and at the time, I wanted to stay as close to the true story as possible, but since then, I have realized that it wouldn't be possible, and besides, I don't think that it is necessary. And yes, you are right, they are both the same, no difference.
Thank you for pointing out the fact about Hermione not being able to use magic, I've already corrected the mistake to she can't use it much as she has to keep away from the muggles seeing her.
You have a good point about chapter 29 being a goof place to introduce the Tonks', but I don't think that Harry would want to invite somebody who he has never met, even if they are distantly related to him. And what about his grandparents' portrait ?